• Drove up to Rob Donoghue's house at ZOMG o'clock.
  
• Got on the road around 5:30 am.
  
• Much great gaming geekery discussion, ranging from design matters to personalities to industry ideas.
  
• Got to the Hyatt in Morristown; half-hour parking lot hell.
  
• Check-in, got ourselves situated; see many people, many handshakes and hugs; lunch with Ryan Macklin and Matt Gandy.
  
• General hanging out, with a particular "gobsmack Chad" moment:
  
  
  
  • MACKLIN: "You think you're pretty damn cool, don't you?"
    
  • YOUR HUMBLE: "Yup."
    
  • MACKLIN: "I bet you think you deserve a motherfucking medal for just being you, for just being Chad Underkoffler, don't you?"
    
  • YOUR HUMBLE: "Abso-friggin'-lutely."
    
  • MACKLIN: "Alright, then, bitch!" (fumbles in bag, produces a medal)
    
  • YOUR HUMBLE: (pole-axed; gapes like a goldfish; starts laughing hysterically)
    
  • MACKLIN: (to puzzled onlookers) "It's the Silver ENnie for S7S I accepted for him at GenCon."
    
  • [Well played, sir. Well played.]
    
  
  
• Sushi for dinner with Gregory Phillips, Brennan Taylor, and the delightful Lilith Taylor (who we all bored to tears for awhile talking about -- God help me, that I did this -- the economy, CDOs, the Move Your Money concept, yadda yadda. (Sorry, Lilith. The three of us we being old farts.)
  
• Played in a game of 3:16 -- Carnage Amongst the Stars (which I got from the "Haiti Bundle" on RPGNow/DTRPG), GM'd by Matt Weber. Much bug-huntin' and "officers are idiots/douchebags" fun. Think Aliens meets the Starship Troopers movie.
  
• Through the kind introduction of Darren Watts, and the sufferance of Vinny, got into the late-night Texas Hold 'Em game ($20 buy-in). Only had to wait about a half-hour before a seat opened up. I was writing off that $20 as an "entertainment and education expense" -- you see, almost all of my poker playing has been computer/online, so I have very few table skills. I saw this as an opportunity to learn those, and was happy to pay for the privilege, and said as much going in. I made mistakes, I learned, I had fun, and in the end, I made money: when I cashed out at 3 am, I was up $29. (That money helped with some of the Purchases below. Thanks, guys!)
  
• A little under 3.5 hrs sleeps, and then...
  

• When taking my morning shower, one of my greatest fears happened:
  
  
  
  • I slipped and fell in the extremely slick hotel tub.
    
  • I fell completely out of the tub, ripping the shower curtains free.
    
  • I narrowly missed cracking my skull open on the toilet, avoiding a porcelain slam to the brainpan that would have resulted in leaking blood and brains onto the lineoleum.
    
  • As it was, I landed on my... pride. (And we all know my "pride" is very well-padded.)
    
  • Lesson learned? I don't care: I'll wear my fake Crocs into hotel showers from now on.
    
  • BONUS: It's also darkly funny, in a way: "WET NAKED FAT MAN FALLS DOWN IN BATHROOM; FILM AT 11."
    
  
  
• Paid $20 for coffee and a small plate of scrambled eggs and bacon.
  
• Played Ganakagok in the am, GM'd by Jeff Collyer. Think tribal mythopoetical "Inuit-esque" folks, before the first rising of the Sun. The first Ganakagok game I'm been in NOT run by the author/designer (Bill White), and the most soap-opera-y thus far -- much of the play was all about social ties, relationships, status, and the Village.
  
• Pizza for lunch with Joanna and Connie and others.
  
• Spent first part of the afternoon sitting at a table in the hallway between the hotel lobby and the conference center with Rob Donoghue:
  
  
  
  • Shootin' the shit with whoever passed by.
    
  • Gave an academic interview to Bill White on North American jeepform/freeform play.
    
  • Talked with Vinny regarding some of the stuff I'll touch on in the Sunday Indie Roundtable discussion below.
    
  • Farted around with Rob and a deck of cards, trying to see if there was a good card-based resolution system for the sort of "give-and-take" in conflicts one sees in fiction and movies.
    
  
  
• Played in Dan Solis' Happy Birthday, Robot. It's a fantastic all-ages game, and can RAWK as a "generic" party game with non-gamer geeks. (Any game that can credibly survive the input of an over-caffinated/over-sugared 7 yr old has serious chops.) This one's a winner, folks. (muskrat_john, this is an Out of the Box game just waiting to happen. SRSLY.)
  
• Dinner, with much discussion of semiotics. ROCK ON!
  
• While waiting for the stars to align, Jared Sorensen (that magnificent bastard) tricked a bunch of us into playing several rounds of JUNGLE ADVENTURE, a Parsely game. . . and thus assured I'd buy ACTION CASTLE the next day (see below, Purchases). (Parsely games are PERFECT party games, BUT I do have to note it may be only perfect for those of us at a certain age. I don't really know if the whippersnappers would get into infocom-style text adventures. I welcome insights.)
  
• My attempt to Make Macklin Cry (by running Mythender) more or less fails. Mac's on top of his game, and handles it with aplomb and fun. CURSES!
  
• Awesome lobby socialization.
  
• Sleep the sleep of the Dead.
  

• $20 bacon and eggs, again.
  
• Looking at the sched, I figured there was a decent chance of getting into a Fiasco game: many tables, early Sunday, rock on.
  
• Have ridiculous amount of fun with Fiasco. (Jason, was it "Besting" or "Breaking" or "Busting" when talking about one's "Jonx"?)
  
• Fantastic, if short, chat with Remi Treuer.
  
• Many hugging goodbyes.
  
• The Indie Roundtable, where:
  
  
  
  • Vinny laid out some ideas for a separate, Indie publisher/designer-focused mini-con. More deets will be forthcoming -- but I find the idea of a robust practical game design seminar track, a publishable academic "Proceedings" document, the idea that demos could be video'd and YouTube'd, and a central online forum/resource site VERY HOT. (Think of this mini-con idea as "Indie Roundtable, all the time!")
    
  • I offered my arrogant opinion on many topics.
    
  • Kudos to the Robs (Bohl and Donoghue) for emcee-ing.
    
  
  
• Saddlin' up with Rob D. for the drive south.
  
• Much great discussion, ranging from gaming stuff to fiction stuff to genealogical/family history stuff to philosophical explorations.
  
• Get my car from Donoghue land; drive home; magically find an appropriate parking spot. Unpack/do required chores. Crash.
  
  Purchases
  
  
  
  • A remarkable amount of Guinness.
    
  • ACTION CASTLE
    
  • The Day After Ragnarok
    
  • Human Contact
    
  • Lucha Libre HERO
    
  
  
  
  And now I am doing laundry.

Tags: asmp, books, conventions, evilhat, game design, gaming, interviews, mad rpg theory, mental health, pdq, philosophy, poker, s7s, truth-and-justice, wtf?