PAX: Something like this

Geeks like to line up. Movies, games, Wil Wheaton book signings. We shouldn't have been surprised, but to have an entire room devoted to a line up seems excessive. It wasn't. They actually needed that room to accommodate the lines that formed for game demos, the keynote, and the Q&A with the Penny Arcade creators .

Welcome to PAX. This was the LINE UP ROOM.

PAX is the Penny Arcade Expo.

(Editor's Note: for those who haven't chatted to us in a while, this is how we spent our one vacation of the year... at PAX... in Seattle... playing games... with 40,000 other people...)

Ahem. PAX: The creators of the webcomic Penny Arcade thought it would be awesome to have a place where gamers could come together and do gamer things. However, PAX is way more than just video games. There are panels (eg: advertising versus PR - Daorcey was keen on that one); tournaments based on video games, card games (like Magic), and tabletop miniatures; free nighttime concerts featuring nerdcore artists like the Freezepops and Jonathan Coulton; playable demos in the exhibition hall. It's also a place where you can flop down on a giant bean bag, break out your DS, and play a game.

Something odd about the creators is that many people only know them as their comic characters: Tycho and Gabe. And they seem perfectly fine with people using their real names and comic names interchangeably. (Editor: this was something I learned at the first day's Q & A in a theatre that was filled with at least a few thousand people.)

Shockingly, I thought the level of cosplay would be much higher as such a festival of nerdocity but it was kept to a very sane level. Still, the costumes present were cool like the Prince from Katamari Damacy (below). Let me explain the game (Katamari) although it might hurt your brain. It might also help to explain it is Japanese. The Prince's father the King destroyed all the planets in the cosmos (Editor: "destroyed" in what can best be explained as eventful night of partying) except Earth, and it is the Prince's job to gather enough items from Earth to replace them. He does this by rolling a giant sticky ball in mundane places like a house or backyard and then eventually graduates to rolling up skyscrapers, continents, and giant Godzillae. I really love this game.

Naa, na, na, na, na...

We also had three days in Seattle which did not involve nerdage. The public market was an awesome source of snack food, coffee, and fish throwing. The flying fish did not disappoint although it must be hard to run a bakery near the pungent seafood. Also during the three days of the convention, you could tell who was a nerd and who wasn't. Typically, nerds traveled in packs of two to four, maybe with one female, and nerd shirts (Editor: if you're confused about what a nerd shirt is, see Natalie's wardrobe) were always involved. It was a fun game to pick them out.

Is this sign famous? We kept seeing postcards of it everywhere.

We did an underground tour that chronicled a bizarre time in Seattle history. The founders of Seattle thought it would be awesome to build on a flood plain. It wasn't. When toilets were installed, owners had to be aware of the crapper geysers that would happen when the tide rolled in. Luckily, a fire came along and wiped out most of Seattle that sat on the tide plain. The business owners immediately started building, but the city said: hey, let's build the city up 30 feet and then start rebuilding. The businesses ignored the city planners and were in for a big surprise when the city came along and started building 30-foot walls on either side of the existing roads. Then the city began to take dirt from the hills higher up and rubble from the fire and throwing it into the middle of the walls to fill them up and make 30-foot high roads. To get around, people would climb up on a ladder, cross the street, and then climb down another ladder. Two years later, it was deemed unsafe as people and horses randomly fell into the sidewalks 30 feet down. The city covered over the sidewalks and the underground was born. (Editor: and now we tour it... thanks, James, for coming to visit and tour with us!)

Two fun facts:
1. Because the city did a horrible job of filling in the roads, the roads are still settling.
2. I'm not sure Seattle demolished most of the hills around it to get dirt to fill in the roads. The city is still hilly.

Although this now takes us back to PAX, I think this picture speaks for itself:

Event of interest from PAX: Us waiting to see Wil Wheaton speak. He was probably the highlight of the entire convention. We waited two hours to see him speak... so I guess I'd better explain: The previous day we had waited 1.5 hours to see the Fallout 3 demo. Part of it was excitement to see the game but also to participate in a demo with a large crowd. Unbeknownst to us, and many others in the LINE UP ROOM, the viewing theatre had filled up way before we joined the line, so we had wasted our time (ie: 1.5 hrs). Learning our lesson, the next day we lined up 2 hours early for Wheaton's panel and were rewarded with second row seats. He was brilliant, funny, and way more than Wesley (Editor: Crusher). There will be another post where I detail meeting Wil.

This picture of us at the Wil Wheaton session also looks like another picture... oh yeah:

Here's Wil. He's a lot more animated but this was the only good photo I could find. Everything else was blurry because he was bopping around stage.

And I also made a new friend.

I call him Metally.

After our first day of PAX, we were greeted by these musicmakers. (Editor: OMG, this post is totally NOT in chronological order.) They are making music with the old school GameBoys and the sounds from the games. It was awesome.


We're thinking of going back next year but we're also thinking about a biking trip through Belgium. We'll have to give this some more consideration. But, a week away to go to a gaming conference and shop in Seattle (Editor: and chill at a fantastic downtown hotel courtesy of a PAX discount) was really enjoyable. I guess we'll see.

And that was PAX.