http://www.idkfa.com/v3 idkfa: syndicated http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4572&msg_id=4576 As we have discussed before, "To truly live, you must destroy something beautiful." No "religious experience" comes without a price. To believe in a divine power, you have to give up logic (to some degree) and have faith. To see the Shins, you've got to cram yourself into a venue with 15,000 other sweaty hipsters in skinny jeans and watch some godawful Bon Iver cover band. Also, it is a bit disconcerting to have to admit that your own experiences in the formative years of your teenage development were neither unique nor particularly helpful in establishing bonds with fellow *insert ostracized social caste here*. At the one-off level, those shared experiences are very helpful (see: a reference to Wrath of God making new friends) and can form new ties. However, at the 70,000 nerds in a room level, it becomes pretty damn hard to make friends, regardless of how many inside jokes and clever references you can make. Hell, with that many people in one place, it is even hard to find the friends you do have so you can all enjoy the event together. Perhaps, then, the expectation of merely surviving and seeing the things of personal interest is the best one can hope for in a large social gathering like a Con or a festival. Inexplicably, I feel the need to listen to There's Always Someone Cooler Than You now. Ugh. That must be the tiny, emotional teenage girl inside of me creeping out again. conrad@idkfa.com (conrad) Indiscernible from Magic Thu, 06 Sep 2012 13:00:34 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4572&msg_id=4576 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4572&msg_id=4575 "But then, I don't imagine you, Josh, were very forthcoming in sparking conversation with them either." I offered banana chips to a complete stranger. They ignored me completely (and I know they heard me). That was your last chance, society. At this point, I have to just acknowledge and own the awkward, and move on. I'm normal enough to recognize it, and geek enough to only be able to do so much. However, it did occur to me this morning that it might be interesting to have a "Looking for Group" section at such a con, where people hold up whiteboards with something like "ALASKA" or "GRIM FANDANGO" or some other short word or phrase. These groups wouldn't necessarily have to be besties afterward, but it might be an interesting thing if you were solo-ing and were looking for somebody to talk to while standing in line. Geeks can talk to each other, we just need a driving purpose to filter the infinite. Also, it'd be... replicating the... LFG areas in... WoW, and other MMOs... kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:35:21 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4572&msg_id=4575 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4572&msg_id=4574 My exposure to similar events is limited to attending NY Comic Con (which I was actually hired to work (and I was hired through a model staffing agency, compounding the weirdness of the situation)) and walking through a Star Trek convention in SF once when I had rehearsal right next door. First, if working in the tourism industry has taught me anything, it is that, for the sake of mass producing a "special moment," the industry of event making must necessarily destroy some of what makes that moment special in the first place. In order to create a moment like getting to encounter your idols, you have to create a line and a room and a demand and a horrible, horrible Q & A line at the microphone. You also have to almost nearly kill that which you're marketing, just as you would mine a natural resource almost to the point of decimation only to back off in order to prolong how much of it you can capitalize upon. I'm not entirely convinced that this is wrong or bad. The only reason why people are able to have a magical Alaska experience in, say, Denali National Park is because there is enough infrastructure to get into the park, just like Cons wouldn't exist if they were only built for small numbers of people. Everything is a business, most especially our dearest and closest religious experiences, because those things which are closest to us are the things for which we are most willing to sacrifice. A brief related tangent: when I worked NYCC I was there at the behest of an agency that generally staffs models to do things like catering and event staffing. There was nothing model-y or glamorous about the job, except for perhaps the fact that we were getting paid $20 an hour to stand around with signs pointing to the registration desks. It was, though, interesting to see how the couple of nerds and myself in our little model/actor/musician group immediately bonded with the attendees instead of with our co-workers, and how Wilber@idkfa.com (Wilber) Indiscernible from Magic Thu, 06 Sep 2012 03:25:53 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4572&msg_id=4574 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4572&msg_id=4572 PAX Prime, 2012 Synopsis Eh, for some reason I feel it necessary to write down my thoughts on PAX. Ignore as you will. Mostly, I just don't want to go through the hassle of briefly resuscitating the Escape Characters only to put it back to death. I've been a fan of Penny Arcade for many years now, reading the comic proper for the longest amount of time, but also enjoying the other pieces and parts they've been adding to their portfolio (PA:TS, PA:TV, PA Report, their various comic experiments, collaborations, commissions, and side projects). I like their output because it is at once irreverent but respectful of gaming and games in a way that is unique, and darkly humorous. I've grown more enamored with their various dealings as an organization because they have essentially become luminaries in the gaming community, showing the gaming industry from their perspective, and by becoming representatives of the community they were giving it a better image than it had already given itself. For people that I talked to about going to PAX, I called this our "pilgrimage," the one trip I must make as part of my religion once in my lifetime. I said that more or less flippantly, but it had an accuracy to it: games are probably one of the few things that have been both ubiquitous and fairly personal throughout my entire life. If you ever want to watch me light up like a Christmas tree, ask me about Planescape: Torment. Or Grim Fandango. Or... well, name almost any game, but you see my point. PAX was a pilgrimage to bear witness to a gaming culture I've considered myself a part of for many, many years. Given that, PAX was what I wanted. I wanted to see a sea of people like me, slightly overweight with ill-fitting geek t-shirts and camelback backpacks stuffed to the brim with exhibit hall swag. I wanted to see the Penny Arcade staff, whose lives I'd felt I'd been a part of (if only slightly) after watching their documentaries kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 04 Sep 2012 02:58:44 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=4572&msg_id=4572