Faceless Blog

It’s true, I’m looking forward to PAX East, the East coast version of a video game and webcomic convention that normally takes place in Seattle.  I can honestly say; however, that I’m not excited for the “normal” reasons.  You see, I have a number of friends that I only see at PAX, usually due to how far away they live from me.  These friends have only ever known me in my wheelchair.  Outside of Youtube videos, they just don’t even know what I look like on my feet.  Next year’s PAX East will be the very first time that I will be able to greet those friends on my feet, face to face and shake their hands.  (I would say give them a hug, but I don’t know how stable I’ll be on my feet by then.)  It’s hard to explain how much this means to me, I guess.  You’d think it wouldn’t be that big a deal, since they’ve seen me walking on Youtube many times, but it is a big deal…a really big deal.  So, PAX Friends, be patient.  March is coming, surprisingly fast, and on that first day of PAX, you’ve got a big handshake/hug coming.  

Friday started out with the first Cookie Brigade meeting in the lobby of the Westin.  The Cookie Brigade, for those who don’t know, is a volunteer group that raises money for Child’s Play.  We bake and distribute cookies for free to people at PAX, then take a (strictly optional) donation to Child’s Play.  This year…spoiler…we raised $9,600.  Aside from just being generally amazing, this total also blew away last year’s total and even beat the total amount gathered at last year’s PAX Prime!  (where the Cookie Brigade was born)  After dropping off the Cookie Brigade flag that Becca and her mom made with VT, I picked up some supplies for the day, double checked my cookies and headed off to the convention center to start working some of the lines.  I got over to the convention center and, not being very familiar with it yet, actually ended up working the line for the Penny Arcade Merch booth.  Recognition of the Brigade was much higher this year, I’m sure partly due to the several shout-outs we received throughout the year, especially from the awesome folks at Loading Ready Run.  I was only able to work the line for an hour or so before I had to meet up with Becca and get to the Main theater for the Keynote address, but by the time I booked it up to the third floor, I had already raised over a hundred dollars, so that was a nice start.

I won’t spend too much time speaking about Jane McGonigal’s Keynote address, other than to say that it was incredible.  I’m sure that if it’s not already available on Youtube, then it will be shortly.  As soon as it is, I recommend that you watch it.  Her main theme, which was how games can be used to genuinely improve our lives, struck very close to home for Becca and I.  She went through a pretty serious head injury a few years ago, and to ease the mental trauma of her recovery, she made a game out of it.  Seriously, as soon as you can watch it, do it.  At one point, it even made the members of Team 9 all smile to ourselves simultaneously and text each other with comments of support.  (Since Becca and I had the medical badges and Steph and Andrew didn’t, we were in different parts of the theater.)  The Keynote also kicked off the three great conspiracies of PAX East.  

1. Make sure Becca cries at least once every day of PAX.
2. Make sure Jeff and Becca eat very poorly for the duration of PAX.
3. Make sure Jeff and Becca get not nearly enough sleep.

Becca got her tears out of the way early on Friday, crying a bit (several times) during the Keynote.  It was definitely a trend that would continue.

We stayed in the main theater after the Keynote for the first PA Q&A which was, as always, hysterical.  I have to say, I admire Mike and Jerry during these Q&A’s for being as patient as they are with some of their fans.  While most of the people that get to the microphones have legitimate questions or requests (sign this, sing a song, etc), there are some…shall we say…less mature fans.  Whether they’re actual kids or they just have a similar mentality, they feel the need to blast out some vulgar joke or request.  Mike and Jerry, to their credit, handle it all in stride, calmly brushing it off.  I tip my hat to you, gentlemen.  (and it’s a nice hat, too!)

Aaron C, who I’m pretty sure is the leader of the Special Forces branch of the Enforcers, informed us after the Q&A that if we were planning on attending the Blamimations Alive panel, we could just hang out here, as it had been moved to the main theater.  Aaron was just one of the many Enforcers who were just awesome throughout the whole event.  Scott and Kris, not surprisingly, arrived a little early for their panel.  Scott must have just bought a copy of Pokemon Black (or white, I’m not sure), and he openly invited anyone that wanted to trade Pokemon to come up to the stage and trade.  A line immediately formed, and didn’t completely dissipate until moments before the panel was to begin.  Kris did a good job of looking frustrated and left out, not being into Pokemon and having no one on his side of the stage.  Graham, of Loading Ready Run, was in the audience and must have felt bad for Kris.  He walked up on to his side of the stage, waited for him to turn around, then calmly talked to him for a minute or so, reassuring him, I can only believe.  After that, Kris leaned down to his mic and suggested that if anyone had any real stuff they’d like to give him rather than the…and I’m quoting here…”fake bullshit.”  Amusingly, a line started up on Kris’ side as well.  If you watch the videos of the panel (that feature the lines before it started, you can actually see Becca in line delivering Kris some cookies!)  Once both lines were dealt with, and the proper time rolled around, the panel actually started.  Scott and Kris were a little hesitant at first.  You can tell that, down inside, they’re still a bit insecure, and not sure whether or not they’ll meet everyone’s expectations.  As it turns out, there was ABSOLUTELY no need for that concern.  Their panel was possibly the funniest hour of PAX, absolute genius, through and through.  As I mentioned, the panel is already up on Youtube, I recommend that you go watch it, though I’m sure it won’t compare to the actual experience of being there.

The last panel that we ended up seeing on Friday was called “Gamers Doing Good,” and it was all about how gamers are combining their love of gaming and their desire to do charity work.  With our involvement in the Cookie Brigade, not to mention future plans to raise even more money for Child’s Play, we were very interested.  This one was slightly disappointing.  I think I was just expecting something different.  While I went in hoping for instructions on how to set up your own charity event, or tips and tricks on such a thing, this panel primarily just discussed charitable events that the two groups running the panel had already run.  It was useful, if only to get their contact info, but just not what I was expecting.

By the time we got out of that panel, it was 6:30 and we hadn’t had anything to eat since some pastries in the morning.  We met up with some friends for a quick dinner, then went back over to the convention hall to hit the lines again.  Cookie Brigade duty never stops!  Becca and I have a very effective distribution of duties for our Cookie Brigade work.  She is an incredible baker.  As many people can attest, she is a baking machine.  Not only can she crank out impressive numbers of cookies, she’ll show up with some pretty bizarre, yet strangely delicious recipes.  This year, unfortunately, we didn’t have quite as large a variety as last year, but we had more than enough cookies, and they were all damned tasty.  My job, on the other hand, is to be like the old time carnival barker.  As we walk up and down the line, I call out “Free cookie from the Cookie Brigade!  Chocolate Chip, Toffee Chip, all benefiting Child’s Play!” or something similar.  I’ve got it down to a science now.  I can spot the faces that look interested or curious, then target and convince them.  Once one person gets some cookies, the others around them begin to see that it’s for real, and two or three more people say that they’d like some.  Usually, we’d get one person in each bunch that didn’t even want any cookies, they just wanted to give some money to Child’s Play.  For them, we’d have one of the little buttons that VT had made, looking like an 8-bit cookie with a number eleven on it for PAX East 2011.  

When we had finally burned through our supply of cookies for the evening, we retired to our room at the Westin and invited our friends Stephen and his wife Tina over to the room to hang out, talk, laugh and generally experience the community high that is PAX.  We must have been up until 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning, laughing with friends that we don’t see nearly often enough.  As with every PAX, we agreed that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to only meet once a year, and I think that this year is the one when we’ll hold one (or more) “Mini-PAX’s,” either here or abroad, where we can laugh, chat and have fun with our extended PAX family.  

Tomorrow should be an interesting day, with the Make-a-Strip panel and the Loading Ready Run extended Panel-o-rama!  Hope this is coming across as somewhat coherent.  There’s just a lot of data to share, here.  :)

Though PAX doesn’t officially start until Friday, there are some people who prefer to show up on Thursday.  Becca and I are, as you’d guess, among those people.  I always prefer to get my medical badge early, and this time, Becca had something to drop off with the Enforcers.

We found that the BCEC was much easier to get to than the convention center from last year.  Our driving instructions had us on main roads for the majority of the trip, with only a couple quick turns at the end to get us to the Westin.  Unfortunately, just as we started the last portion of our trip, where we’d have to pay closer attention to the turns, my buddy Andrew called.  This year, our first year with both Becca and I having Droid X’s, we were using the phone’s Navigation rather than the old GPS.  This was the first time I saw a problem with this idea, since I had to hit Ignore on Drew’s call in order to keep up with our turns.  As it turned out, he was calling to let us know that he was waiting for us at the hotel, which we found out moments later as we pulled into the valet parking area and found Drew waiting just outside the passenger door, waving happily.

PAX, from the outsider’s perspective, is about video games.  It’s easy to think that.  Games are everywhere, gaming references abound, you’ll frequently see people dressed as video game characters.  To say that PAX is about video games; however, is only partially true.  Just as much as it’s about gaming, if not more, PAX is about community.  I was reminded of that when we pulled in to the hotel lot and saw my good friend waiting for us there.  

As soon as we got the van unloaded, Becca went to check us in while Drew and I started to catch up.  The hotel was nice enough to store our luggage while our room was being prepared.  (We’d have to wait a few hours which, after talking to other guests of the hotel, ended up being pretty reasonable.)  This was just fine with us, as we had things to do anyways.  Becca grabbed the cooler with the Gobs (aka Whoopie Pies, Moon Pies, etc) and we headed over to the convention center.  As soon as we entered the building, it was obvious that the BCEC is much bigger than the convention center we used last year.  We had been hearing about it all year, but it really was a striking difference.  We headed over to the registration area and were immediately helped by the Enforcers, who happily and quickly provided my wife and I with medical badges.  (I’m a double amputee, and I get one extra badge for my wife.)  Just a quick note:  If you have any reason to need one, I highly recommend you take advantage of the medical badge.  It allows you (and your “plus one”) to be let in first to any panel, have front row seating at the concerts, and be let in an hour early to the show floor when it opens.  At PAX, I have friends who are paraplegic, quadriplegic, have nerve problems in their legs, etc.  The common thread is that we all deeply appreciate the medical badges.  It makes things much easier for us without making you feel singled out, or any less of a person.

After we retrieved our medical badges, we hopped over to the Info desk, where a lot of Enforcers were busy checking in and getting their initial assignments.  I wheeled up to the desk and announced our presence as Ambassadors of the Cookie Brigade.  Becca, wanting to show our appreciation for everything the Enforcers do, had baked close to 200 gobs to deliver to the Enforcers at PAX East this year.  They were thrilled when she opened the cooler and placed a box of gobs on the counter of the info desk.  They were surprised when she placed the second box there.  By the time she got to the fourth box, they had already called for some assistance to take the gobs to a secret location.  Throughout the weekend, we would then continue to run into Enforcers who would thank us for the Gobs.  (It seems that while not everyone got one, a lot of Enforcers did.)  

I also had one of the best things, and worst things of my weekend on Thursday.  On the bright side, we finally got to meet Steph in person, after becoming fast friends via Twitter.  The down side?  Due to the blister that I developed towards the end of in patient physical therapy, I wasn’t able to stand up to give her the hug that she deserves.  After talking, laughing and lots of hugs in our room for a while, we eventually made it downstairs for a nice, if overpriced dinner at one of the hotel restaurants.  We also got to really spend some time with Drew’s friend Adam.  We had met briefly last year, but hadn’t spent a lot of time together.  I’m glad we got the chance, this year, he’s a really funny guy.

After dinner, we retired to the room where we continued to catch up, laugh with each other and enjoy some of Becca’s delicious jello shots.  (The best ones were the Strawberry flavored with Strawberry rum in the shape of two bite sized brains.)  This is the one time a year that I drink, and considering that I’m also taking prescription painkillers, I barely drink, even then…but those jello shots are damned good.  

That about wraps up Thursday.  Tomorrow, we’ll get in to actual PAX related content, I promise.  I apologize for the wordiness, but what can I say?  It was a busy weekend.

The more observant among you have noticed that I have changed my Twitter avatar.  The new avatar is a logo that I just designed with the help of Andrew (@GeekBoston), my team-mate from the Omegathon back at this year’s PAX East.  Unlike previous Omegathons, it was decided that PAX East’s Omegathon would be a team oriented beast, and it was quite interesting.  The teams were assigned numbers based on the order in which they were picked.  We were team nine.  Our motto, after we got thoroughly beaten in Mario Kart: Double Dash was, “At least we went forward.”  (This referred to several teams after us who had a LOT of trouble with the controls and didn’t move forward as consistently as we did… i.e. They drove backwards.)  Since then, Andrew and I have kept in touch and became good friends.  We continue to refer to ourselves as Team 9, and the motto has changed slightly to the more proactive: “Just keep moving forward.” 

I designed the Team 9 logo with Andrew’s help yesterday, with the idea of adding it to the shoes I’ll be getting soon…the first shoes I’ll have worn in almost three years.  I made it my avatar because it is a reminder of the Team 9 motto, and how much it means in my day-to-day life.  You HAVE to keep moving forward.  In situations such as mine, it’s when you look back that you can trap yourself in sadness, self-pity and the like.  I’ve got no time for that crap.  I’ve got places to go, people to meet, things to do. 

I am proud to be a member of Team 9.  I AM moving forward.