In retrospect, it’s hard to understand what came over me. Last week’s column hit a bit of a fanciful tone, and I can only guess that it was brought on by several days’ worth of erratic sleep. Try as I might have, I couldn’t drown out the voices (both inside and outside my head) that chose the most ridiculous hours to screamingly remind me where I was about to go.
GENCON!
They worked on me like their cousins, the tribal drums of Africa that so maddened wayward explorers. Instead of insidious rhythms, they opted for what amounted to aural shock therapy to sway my mind to follow their patterns. Night and day they kept at me.
GENCON!
OMC: Alright already! Enough is enough. I know very well that I’m going –
GENCON!
OMC: What kind of hack voice works at 5:06 AM? That’s not even a real time, for crying –
GENCON!
OMC: I think I’ll make myself a nice glass of warm milk and some –
GENCON!
GENCON, BABY, GENCON!
That last one could have been me, for all I can remember of the night before we left. I woke up in some of the deepest pile carpet known to man.
The trip down was anything but bearable. Stuffing five men into a sedan doesn’t make for a pleasant ten-hour drive in anyone’s opinion. Unfortunately, the upholstery in Notman’s car has disintegrated to the point that a ride in his car has the comfort of scaffolding covered in tacks, so anything short of hellish was a plus.
So imagine yourself pressed flesh-to-flesh with four other men riding in the business end of a wheeled garlic-press, while having this shouted conversation over the strains of Enya’s "Orinoco Flow":
James: Notman, turn off that garbage; it’s time to swap CD’s.
Notman: I’m not playing anything German.
Champ: SABBATH!
OMC: Just three or four songs. By Jingo, this feels like needles in my eyes.
Champ: SABBATH!
Kyle: Put on the Tragically Hip!
OMC & JAMES: SHUT UP KYLE!
Champ: Who Made Who!
OMC: Who made you?
Champ: Who made YOU, Josh Bennett?
James: Here, put on Rammstein.
Notman: I SAID I’M NOT PLAYING ANY OF YOUR GOD-DAMNED KRAUT-ROCK!
By the time we hit Chicago, it felt like the car had actually tunneled into my spine. Kudos to Tainted Love by Soft Cell, the only song enjoyed by all. I was far too close to deciding for everyone that headlong off the bridge was an acceptable shortening of the trip.
Once we settled into our ruthlessly small hotel room, the GenCon voices started up again. My blood may have been angried up by an unreal commute, but the city of Milwaukee only strengthened their cries. Within moments, I was a kid again.
Based on my recent experiences, being a kid involves the following:
Surliness
Sloganed T-Shirts
Making Fun
Smoking
Creative Cursing
Pointing and Laughing
Staring
Cartoons
Games
not to mention Horseplay
By these criteria, nearly everyone at GenCon was a kid. It is thus with deference to waning attention spans worldwide that I present in quasi-chronological order the most important vignettes from my trip.
– When playing a board game that requires a lot of dice rolling, such as Avalon Hill’s TITAN, do not try to get by with only three six-sided dice. Although the game will appear to move smoothly, you will have nowhere near as much fun as I did chucking thirty-five dice and coming up with only one six.
– Try new games and have fun doing so. However, try to be as objective as possible in your assessment of the game, otherwise you could end up shelling out major buckazoids for something you’ll never use, or what’s worse, shelling out your dignity for free packs of the Scooby Doo game.
– Wizards of the Coast dominated the centre of the dealer’s area with a makeshift castle.
– L5R dominated the CCG playing area with makeshift competitors. They not only outnumbered any Magic players, but also the poor souls playing the Tomb Raider CCG.
– Nothing will ever be as funny as someone dressed up like The Crow, trying to look cool while fixing the zipper on their pants.
– Not only do attractive women show up to these conventions, but they also trick themselves out in the most outlandish getups. I am as surprised as the next man (the next man being me also).
– Good Cthulhu shirts were outnumbered by No Reason Cthulhu shirts by four orders of magnitude.
– It is good and right to resist the urge to enter the PTQ when the only Magic Cards in your possession are the leave-ins from your friend’s drafts.
– I missed out on meeting Gary Gygax, JMS, C3P0, Nog, Buff Bagwell, and the former Mrs. Goldust. Sixty-seven percent of those were due to my being passed out in a chair.
– The former Mrs. Goldust is a big Ozzy Osbourne fan. Her favourite song is "Mama, I’m Comin’ Home".
– In four-man draft (the only Magic I played all weekend), it is very important to first-pick the Spitting Spider for your U/B deck, never mind your 2x Counterspell and Stronghold Biologist. You will be caught with your pants figuratively around your ankles by it two games straight in the finals.
– Although I tried to capture an "Ape of the Day" for each day of my trip, I never had a hope of success. Two of my choices were the King Kone in Windsor. There were no subsequent apes.
– On our return, the border guard made sure to ask us about replica swords. Firearms went uninvestigated.
This document fails to capture the magic of my trip. I can’t even remember it in its proper form. Let this be your warning to cherish the present in all its wonder. You’ll forget, but you had a great time. I promise.
OMC
Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! Excelsior! ‘Nuff Said!
No-Prize.