PAX III: The revenge

Well, PAX is over now (At least for me, I can't make it for the last day :( ) It was a lot of fun, I got to do quite a few things, including play some games that are either new, or games I don't get to play much (I spent an hour playing Day of defeat and counterstrike in the big PC freeplay room, I really want to get a computer that can play some form of Half-life 2)

I was a little disapointed that there was no Wii, but there was some good games for DS like "Elite Beat Agents" (Aseomly funny) and Mario Vs. Donkey Kong 2, which is something like lemmings but with Marios. Speaking of lemmings, I saw a row of people dressed as lemmings. They dressed in Blue robes and green wigs. One had a pick axe and another had a red and white umbrella and a third had a number over their head. I saw them marching around in single file in classic lemming fasion. Best cosplay ever.

I also expored the "World's smallest dungeon" at the technomancer booth. The "dungeon" was acrually nothing more than a small dark box with flashing lights, fake cobwebs and sound way to loud. The "adventurer" was supposed to find a described object in under 60 seconds to win a prize.

The US army had a large screen with a light gun version of the trianing from their "America's heros" game, rigged with a modifyed real M16 with a air compression system for realistic action.

The expo also had panels as well. They kept the anual tradition of someone proposing at the first panel. At the piutch your game panel, I pitched a idea i had for a space FPS prison escape game, but it didn't fare well. I personaly think it was better than it was treated, but at the same time I don't think I pitched it very well.

Another great things about expos is the swag, that is free stuff. The army gave me a CD case, microsoft gave me a neat keyboard cleaning brush and I got a few boosters and a starter pack of magic: The gathering Cards from wizards of the coast.

This is mostly a video game expo, but there's a strong table-top/board game prescense too and so I got to get in a game of Setlers, and learned a new game called "Betrayal at haunted hill" which is basicly the board game version of every horror movie you ever saw. I'm not much a fan of horror movies, but the game was still insanely fun, I kept looking for games, and managed to squeeze in three games this weekend.

Overall it was a good expo.

Book Reviews

I recently read two books (on the same day actually) "Nothing but the truth: A documenttry Novel" By Avi, and "Thing not seen" By Andrew Clements.

"Nothing but the truth: A documenttry Novel" is about a student who gets in trouble for causing a disturbance in one of his classes with a teach he doesn't like. But he lies, (or rather doesn't tell the whole truth) to get his teacher in trouble. One interesting thing about the way the story is told is that it is completly written as transcripts of conversations, memos and letters as opposed to the normal story style. It was an alright story, though I felt it was a little less direct than it could be, I didn't completly understand the reason some of the characters acted as they did. The story telling just felt flat.

I loved "Things not seen" The story is one I had heard about from my sister, then forgot about. It's a story of a boy name Bobby who has a very strange problem, one morning he woke up and he was gone. Not gone as transported to another place, but invisible. He and his parents descide to keep it a secret, but when he is sneaking around the library he litarly bumps in to a girl and he thinks his secret is revealed, execpt he finds out she is blind and doesn't realize he has a problem. They become good friends and he tells her and eventualy convinces her that he really is invisible. Together (with an expanding number of people "in" on the secret including her parents) try to find a solution for Bobby to be visible again. Very funny heartwarming story with characters I really liked. Definitly a good read.

Sketch - Girl's Head

I like to draw, i'm not really that great, but i thought I'd post some of my stuff.
Here's one I did a week or two ago:

Unfortunitly, I no longer have the URL for the refrence. I'll try to include the refrences as much as I can.

PAX '06

PAX is coming up very very soon and I'm really exited. As you may guess from earlier posts, I'm nostly looking foreword to playing the Wii, though I'm know there's a good chance that it will be too crowded at E3. Also I'll get to play some cool board games again and try out some other cool new stuff.

Now I REALLY want a new computer...

Right now I realy wish I had a good computer.

I just saw the awsome trailer for Portal, It just was mind blowing. Later I got to play around with a game called Narbacular drop, a game by some students from the local digipen university, which is the game that Portals is based on. Spore also looks darn awsome. Our current computer is a crappy Pent II with 300 Mhz. The thing can run Dark Foces II: Jedi Knight and just barely. Then again, I'm happy that I can at least play Alpha Centauri.

For consoles mostly I'm really exited about ther wii, and no matter if you're a black state (Sony) or green state (X-Box) you have to admit it sounds inovative and could be something really cool. I'm especialy excited about Red steel, a swords-and-guns yakusa battling adventure.

I had an idea for a play (Yeah, I know another one), loosly inspired by the movie "The Glactic railroad", which is a slow-paced but beuatiful japaneese animated film about death and life after. Probibly less sureal than that though.

I'm still trying to get my first play produced. I'm not sure How that's going to go.