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13 September 2004

It's now been a week since the end of TCEP 11.  I guess I should try and make something resembling a report... 

Short version:  It went well.  Very well.

Longer version:  I'm going to break this down by day, as well as a "week leading up to the con" section.  Hopefully, I'll be able to keep some semblance of order to this blessed thing.  HA!

The Week Leading Up To TCEP 11:  Knowing full well that Monica was going to have to work the weekend of the convention, I went out of my way in the preceding weeks to prepare as much as humanly possible.  To that end, I had the prize support packed up, the supply boxes packed (one general convention stuff, one for the game room), and had gotten the car ready to go, anticipating loading over the course of the week and being 85% loaded come Thursday bedtime.  That part went well.  We were ready to rock and roll.  

But, as is so often the case, a few issues raised their ugly heads...

The least of these was that our usual support package from Flying Buffalo hadn't arrived.  This was unusual, as Rick Loomis has always been extremely generous to us in the past, but hey, if they didn't feel it appropriate this year to send a support package, so be it.  I'm not going to whine. But what we did need were the Lost Worlds Tournament record sheets.  Well, I e-mailed Flying Buffalo, asking them to send me an e-copy of the sheet so we could have it for the weekend.  What I got instead was a very apologetic e-mail from Rick explaining that he had placed the order for the support stuff to go out in mid-July, but it somehow never got sent.  The package was now being sent, and it would hopefully be in my hands on Friday.  

I like Rick Loomis.

The middle sized issue was that the hotel had changed our function space assignments.  It seems that they had a long-term contract with some IT trainers to use our usual space, and we would be moved to two-thirds of the grand Ballroom (Salons A & B).  OK, it was an upgrade in terms of space, and truthfully, for the LARPs, it worked out much better than we could have hoped for.  No real problem there, except where to find sherpa teams to help navigate the distance to the back of the function space...

The issue which was potentially the largest facing us was with a possible...confrontation...between certain attendees.  Without going into much detail, suffice it to say that there was a history between the two parties, and that it had ended...badly...about 6 years ago.  Now, both were going to be present, and so long as everyone behaved themselves, things would be fine.  We just didn't know if everyone would...

TCEP 11 -  Friday:  With all of that under our belt, and the car mostly packed, I had little to do on Friday morning, except take Bridget to school, do the dishes, and generally make sure all of the little things were done to our home so we didn't come back to it smelling like ass.  Or cat pee.

I waited for the mail to arrive, hoping beyond hope that the package from Flying Buffalo would be there.  It wasn't.  Poo.  I loaded the kids in the car and drove out to Herndon.  By the time we got there, Monica was already in the room relaxing.  She came down and led us up to the room.  Freaking wow.  The hot tub wasn't quite what I had expected; it was a slightly larger bathtub that incorporated jets into it.  Well, what the heck, Mon would still like it.  The room itself was a good size as well, Bridget decided that she wanted to sleep on the chair and ottoman (put together, it was a good size) so we unloaded our stuff, unpacked, and planned our next moves.  Monica and the kids went to the grocery store for a few things we needed, and then to KFC for dinner, while I went downstairs and set up the game room.

Setup went well, despite the fact that I was tired (still getting used to the early mornings).  Yay, preparation!  I was about 90% finished when Monica and the kids came back with food.  This would have been fine, except that some pinhead had yelled at Monica because she dared to insist on proper behavior from the kids.

(An aside:  I know that kids will fuck up.  That's part of being a kid.  I did it, you did it, the person reading over your shoulder did it too.  OTOH, while Bridget and Frankie are generally well behaved, the excitement of "going to Con!" had riled them up.  They were doing a wonderful job of not listening and running all over God's Green Earth (tm).  So their climbing up the counters and swinging on the line barriers at KFC were an extension of what they had been doing for the previous several hours.  I wasn't there, so I don't know what Mon said, but I'm sure it came out sharper than she intended.

And a note to all you well-meaning people like those who talked to my wife:

STFU!

We now return you to the Con report...)

I went upstairs real quick to get rid of the Funk of 40,000 Years Unloading, and then dispatched Monica to the hot tub.  Hopefully, this would allow her to relax while I had the kids.  My scheduled event never went off due to a lack of people.  In fact, the only scheduled events that did go off on Friday were the Aliens Boardgame (boy, I'd like to score a copy of that) and the late night poker.  From all reports, the Sushi (yuk) and non-sushi dinners went off successfully, and all was well.  Frankie skunked Tynie at Candyland, winning the game before Tynie had rounded the first bend.  Fuzz got there and began setting up his little pod so he could finish up LARP stuff.  Monica & Frankie crashed about 9 pm, Bridget & I stayed up until about 11:30 or so, messing with one or two games, but generally just hanging out and talking to people.  One of the amusing things we tried was the El Ravager Lost Worlds character (vastly overpowered) against the Cold Drake (intended for more than one character).  I put a hurting on the drake before he froze me.  As in, I took away more than 1/2 his Body Points.  That ain't right...

TCEP 11 - Saturday:  The kids were up before me, so I groped blindly for the remote so I could put on Nickelodeon and slowly wake up.  Once we got our collective feces gathered, we went downstairs to hit the breakfast buffet at the hotel restaurant.  It wasn't great, it wasn't bad.  Better than last year, for certain.  It's a breakfast buffet, folks, what exactly do you want?  

We took one of the cars around back and parked it by the game room.  Well.  Time to game, eh?  First on my agenda...hm.  Nothing actually.  Not until 2 PM, when I had a game of Illuminati Deluxe.  Sure, I was supposed to be at the Lost Worlds kickoff and the Button Men kickoff, but I wasn't actually running them. Kory & Allison got there not long after I did, and things were looking good.  The event of the morning had to be Fuzz walking through the room with no shirt on.  He was headed to his pod for a clean one.  This prompted a song parody from me:

(To the tune of "Battle Hymn of the Republic")

Mine eyes have seen the whiteness of the Belly of the Fuzz!

It has burned out all my optic nerves; It hurts my brain it does!

I need to find my welders mask; must shield my eyes because

The Whiteness hurts my eyes!

Lord, I think that I am Blinded!

'Least we didn't see his hind end!

The screams, they have me all surrounded

As FuzzFace marches on!

Spent the rest of the morning chatting with people, then walked over to Wendy's & Taco Hell for lunch.  This brought us to Deluxe Illuminati time, which I only watched over for most of the game.  I ended up taking over for Shangri-La, but could only watch as Discordia won the game.  Afterwards, I played a couple of rounds of Bell-Bottomed Badasses on the Mean Streets of Funk (the newest B-movie game from Z-Man games) as well as a round of GROS 2: Skippy's Revenge with Chuck, Kory, and Rose.  I never won, but had a lot of fun killing off characters left and right.

Once Mon got back, she and the kids went into the pool, then came back to run her annual Buffy TVS board game.  Dinner from Wendy's, then putzing about  until 8, when I had my Munchkin a la Carte event (you pick the version, we play it).  We went for the Epic Munchkin Blender.  That's all sets of Munchkin (Munchkin 1, 2 & 3, Star Munchkin 1 & 2, Munchkin Fu and Munchkin Blender) going to level 20.  Or rather, to 22 (Thanks, Creon!).  Once Midnight(!) came and went, I started looking for ways to force an endgame.  My chance finally came about 20 minutes later, and I forced another player to win.  Whew.  

While this was going on, Bridget was having fun playing Carabande with Stoooo, and then apparently read a book to Sallie M. (Thanks Sallie, for that.  I owe you lunch or something.)  The LARP went merrily on its way in Salon A; from all reports, it went off very well.  Thanks to Lewis for pulling it together and pulling it off.

Bridget came to me just after midnight and asked if we could go to bed.  She & I had had it.  We cleaned up some, then crawled upstairs to bed.   

TCEP 11 - Sunday:  Groan. Sunrise already?  Well, Frankie's up.  Time for more Nickelodeon.  Bridget is still crashed.  O good.  He'll be happy with the idiot box.  A shower worked wonders for me.  So, after another trip to the breakfast buffet (French toast this am instead of pancakes.  oooo), we headed for the gameroom.  No one interested in HexHex, so the kids and I hung out and played games for a while.  Somewhere around noon, Andrew Z. & I realized two things:  1: the second LARP (which Fuzz was the primary GM for) was due to start at 1 pm, and 2: there had been no Fuzz sightings.  This was bad.  I called him, and he sounded like raw ground ass, so we immediately set about making preparations to postpone the game for a few hours.  I then went to ConSuite to give Craig a sitrep, and was filled in on the details.  Armed with new info, and fortified by fresh Haitian bread, the kids and I headed back downstairs to party down.  Or throw down.  Get down?  Whatever.

OK, time to hang out and watch the GROS tourney.  Cool.  Watched the kids, but didn't do too much else.  When Mon got off of work she came down and hung out for a little bit, but then she and the kids went upstairs to rest a bit.  Meanwhile, I started planning dinner (Bertucci's) and munching on more fresh bread.  Not enough interest in Nuclear War due to the LARP changing timeslots (I expected this), so I got to help GM my first LARP.  One of the more amusing items was Craig taking on the role of the ship's cat, and chasing the various kids around the room.  Mostly, I was responsible for the forecastle, which had a variety of chests in there with special rules.  Monica and the kids called a night around 8:30, and by that time, three of the chests had been cut open, and two more had been burned.   Well hell, what's the point of staying there.  I helped out where I could, eventually playing the role of the...well, I won't tell you too much.  After all, you might play it some day!  Sad to say, things went badly, and the world ended.  

So, once the LARP was finished, Fuzz, Andrew, Scott G. & I spent some time talking, then I joined the poker game.  I wasn't doing too badly, but I quickly lost track of time. This was made painfully obvious when someone told me that it was 5 am.

ACK!  Mon has to get up shortly!  Must get upstairs!  I threw my chips at Butler, telling him I'd get the cash in the morning.  I ran upstairs and crashed into bed, hoping to force myself into my "hyper sleep" so I would get a reasonable rest.

TCEP 11 - Monday:  Not...enough...rest...

Really, I know better than to play poker on Sunday night.  I have far too much to do on Monday.  So when I finally managed to drag my carcass out of bed, I got the kids together and we headed downstairs for another round with the breakfast buffet.  Emerging victorious from the restaurant, we had them open the room, and I hung out there for a little bit, until someone showed up that I felt I could trust to watch over things (thanks, Tim!).  I went upstairs and plopped the kids in front of the Lilo & Stitch TV series marathon while I packed up the room.  Loaded out by 11, checked out by 11:15, and now, time to pack the gameroom.  

Argh.

OK, let's get to work.  While I cleaned, Frankie & Bridget played with some of the other kids.  Eventually, the other mom ended up with her son and Frankie asleep by her (this was *after* they had gorged themselves on Tootsie Rolls, mind you).  When she finished her game, I collected Frankie; he was only interested in sleeping some more, so I laid him down under one of the tables.  Bridget also ran down some eventually, and laid down on one of the benches to rest.  

About 1, the winners of a number of the weekend-long events were announced.  Craig also took this opportunity to introduce me as the newest member of the Board of Directors of Barking Mad Productions.  Well.  I cleaned things up as quickly as possible, but I think my top speed was about 30% at best.  I finished up just about the time Monica got there, so I loaded everything onto a cart and loaded up the car.  We stopped at the Dead Dog Party (we had previous dinner plans) to chat for a bit, but eventually headed for home.

As I drove home, with music turned up to make sure I didn't fall asleep, I reflected on the weekend

--The Potential Drama never manifested.  This was good.

--Denneal's event never happened.  This was bad.

--I got rid of 2 out of 3 boxes of prize material.  This was good.

--The "Gaming Widow's" Track never happened (for a variety of reasons).  This was bad.

--I got to play some games, both with my kids and with others. This was good.

--Monica missed 1/2 of the con or more.  This was bad.

--I did reasonably well with my first LARP GM'ing.  This was good

--Lots of people had lots of fun playing games.  This was very good.

Overall, a great weekend.  We got home with no incidents.  Already looking forward to next year.

So be there for:

TCEP 12

Things To Do In Herndon When You're Dead

Sept. 2-5, 2005

Join us for the best 4 days of fun in the Greater DC Area!

6 September 2004

Another TCEP is in the record books, and what a weekend it was.

As I am currently running on < 3 hours of sleep, I'm just going to touch on some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the convention.

Start with the bad, I say!

--Due to Circumstances Beyond Control (I suspected fungi from Yuggoth, but what do I know...) the Last Voyage of the Mary Celeste LARP had to have it's departure time moved back about 5 hours.

--Equally unfortunate was that the Chicago Caper also didn't go off, as it had sporadic interest and a changing timeslot.

--Monica had to work all weekend, so she only enjoyed about 1/3 of the con.

On the bright side of life...

--The potential for High Drama was never realized.

--Both LARPs went off and were considered very successful.

--Plenty of people showed up, both old and new.

--Many games were played and much fun was had by all.

Finally, for those who either weren't there or didn't hear about this, allow me to announce the following:

Effective this weekend, the Board of Directors of Barking Mad Productions voted to create a sixth seat on the Board.  This newly-created vacancy was offered to me, and, after consulting with Monica, I have accepted their generous offer.  

I'll consider the ramifications further after I sleep...

2 September 2004

The time is approximately 10:30 EDT.  The cars are 85% loaded.  TCEP 11 starts in approximately 19.5 hours.  

And I'm ready for it.

Ready to see friends.  Ready to play games with people.  Ready to play games with my kids. 

Join us, won't you?

Bridget started school on Tuesday, she is a first grader at St. Jane Frances DeChantal school in Bethesda, MD.  She is loving it.  She is such a bright kid.  And growing up so fast.  So fast.  

Frankie & I went to visit his pre-school last Tuesday.  He'll be going 4 days a week in the afternoon to Geneva Day School.  He didn't want to leave.  He's growing up fast too.  Too fast, it seems.

I'm hoping to be able to make more of the Parent-Teacher Assn. (or whatever they're calling themselves) meetings this year.  That's another reason I disliked the job I held last year - I want to be more involved in their education, but too often I worked nights.

Congrats to my good friend Aynne who passed all the tests to become a licensed real estate agent in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Anyone looking to buy a home?  I know a good realtor...

Oh, did I mention that the game room has a new mascot?  See a picture of him here...

Last thing before I toddle off to bed:  I want to plug three online games.

Button Men Online:  Winner of the 2003 Origins Award for best play-by-mail game, it's a wonderful online version of Button Men, a quick little dice game by Cheapass Games.  It has lots of cool people on there, pictures of all the buttons, a whole slew of new button powers and skills, and the chance to make your very own Button Man recipie!

Carnage Blender:  A text-based, combat oriented, quasi-RPG that has been described as "addictive like digital crack!".  The community there is really one of the high points.  The vast majority of the people are cool, and the whole place is under PG guidelines, so people who like to spew four-letter invectives every third word are not welcome.  If you decide to check it out, list (Uncle) Grayhawk as your reference; I get a in-game bonus for people who join.

Marcoland:  Another text-based, combat orient quasi-RPG.  Nice thing about this one is that you have a certain number of turns per day; once you use them, that's it.  It's a neat fire-and-forget type o' thing.  Cool and different.