It's the final countdown!

I have a week and a half before I make the pilgrimage to the holy land of gaming.

And you know what's starting to annoy me? Everyone reminding me. Every day, I get “So are you excited that you're going to the US?” Yes. I'm excited. Stop reminding me so that I don't jump on the spot and get distracted from work!

Ugh. The people I see every day.

I am very excited. For the first few days, I get to see lots of people I've talked to over the internet. The internet's safe, right? Nobody wants to skin me and then return to Brisbane in my visage? I wouldn't. I'm suspicious enough as it is. I get pulled aside for a “Random Person Search” every friggin time. Melbourne? Yep. I was wearing a Straw hat if I remember correctly. Canberra? I was wearing a beanie. This time I'm not going to wear a hat. The only suspicious thing is that near the back corners of my head, the hair sticks up. No reason. It's like bed hair only it's all freakin' day, every day.

So I'll get pulled over for a bit by US Customs and get inspected for my gear and questioned on my ESTA and, whoever forbid, I get an oral examination (I can hear the latex snapping already) and then I toddle on my way to Indianapolis for Gencon, where we hook up a night at the hotel and I try to adjust my body clock (because Aaron doesn't believe in it and Scott doesn't understand the ability of HAVING one).

There's only a little bit of Ninja shopping I have to do so far. Kel wants a copy of “Least I Could Do: Beginnings” signed by Lars De Souza and Ryan Sohmer; Humph want a Tshirt which is Gencon/PP related, so I'll hopefully get a PP Ram Tshirt; and then there's bits and bobs that I have to grab from Jenny.

Funny enough Jen has asked for a little bit of Ninja Shopping as well, but it's to get an Australian edition of After America. That's all and that's hardly a problem.

While I'm at the convention? First thing I have to do is go to the Privateer Press Booth and report in (AFAIK) and say “Hi” to lots of people and pick up my Press Ganger shirt, and possibly buy Pigs for next years Hordes Army. Oh and Books. Books are nice.

Speaking of Armys, the Man-o-War list is coming along swimmingly. I've got to re-glue a few weapons and finish off the paint on the last unit of Shocktroopers, and finish converting the Bombardiers before I'm done with the tonne of Man-O-War figures. May even get the Behemoth done too, but I'm not going to push my luck. The bastard's missing a Bombard cannon anyway. With this army I shall play matches with people and have a good time. Particularly Waggles. I still owe him a game.

Update: So with the help of Kel, I've finished the Bombardiers! You can check it out herea!

I'm rather glad Aaron will be joining Scotty and I. There's a few hours of the time where I'll be separated from him, and I felt bad knowing I'd be leaving him on his own. There's the Press Gang Invitational, which I owe Jen (a PP Employee) a Beer for giving her the image of shaving someones body hair so that they look like a Penguin (Surely Devilsquid is white under the fur). And then there's the few hours I'm volunteering at the booth to demo games. So Aaron with him will prevent Scotty from getting Hog Tied and forced into cosplaying Faye Valentine because some sweaty nerds couldn't find a frailer body to match a woman.

Anyway. After all is said and done in Indianapolis, I fly up to Detroit and get picked up by the wonderful Jenny. We've been talking a lot about it recently and organised a few days of entertainment. A couple of nights are spent going out to a few parties for friends Birthdays; there is the night of our 8 month (which I think falls on a birthday party, but I'm thinking we'll have dinner another night so that we can really enjoy it); there's apparently a pub crawl across town with her and her family and friends; there's a Wednesday we're going to spend walking around Downtown Kalamazoo going to the art galleries and to a park that has a free concert and have lunch/breakfast at the place wiith the best Grilled cheese sandwiches; and there's going to the movies to see “Mao's Last Dancer” and “Eat Pray Love”.

That's as far as I can remember so far. The last thing I can remember is “Making the most of doing nothing on a Sunday”. Which sounds good to me. I said we could try and con her mum into looking after Taz for the night and we'll pick him up in the afternoon, just so she doesn't have to stress about him for the day.

So anyone who thinks I'm not excited about going to the U.S., please refer to the above. I'm very excited.

What else has been happening?

Well with buying an Xbox 360 a few months ago on the cheap, I decided to hook it up to the net and get into the Marketplace, and what did I find but None other than Doom. I've never gotten very far in Doom. Didn't help that I only got the shareware versions which only had the first Chapter in it, but hey I think I finished that once or twice.

But over the past week of painting, I've taken breaks to rest my knees which really don't like being crossed for too long and slowly worked my way through the labyrinthian levels and solved the puzzles to get to the exit while trying to get out of the firezone of Cacodemons. Fucking Cacodemons. Hate them. I also downloaded Wolfenstein 3D. Now that's a good investment of my remaining 400 MS points.

More games I'm getting next week is Starcraft II. It's got a special midnight release over at King George Square (Apparently it's 1 in six events across the world!) that starts at 9:30 and includes trivia, games, etc. And at midnight, we pick up our copies of Starcraft II and head home. If I get a lift from Aaron, I imagine it'll be a lot like the time I bought Halo 3, and we drove home laughing Maniacally in his ute as we drove from Aspley to Nundah. Then we played until the wee hours of the morning on Richard HD TV he had in the lounge room and we adored the prettiness of the game as we did a two player campaign coop until the wee hours of the morning.

Good times. I want to not sleep and just play SC2's campaign until I have to go to work, but I think I'll pass out and probably wake up late and then get into trouble and I would rather not get into unnecessary trouble.

That's about it for gaming. Voltron came out, as I made mention, and I've still been blogging every Tuesday and Wednesday on I hate Mogroth trying to make funny AND informative. I'm failing, but I'm enjoying it. Though I am running out of subject matter. I may have to actually branch out more into other factions.


In last news, the Natural High July is going well. I haven't had a drop of caffeinated beverage in ages. Though what I haven't drank I've replaced with Chocolate. Its cool but not at the same time, as it's expensive. Also, people are confusing me becuase some people say chocolate has caffeine and others say it doesnt. I really don't know.

One thing I forgot to mention in the Natural High July post was my other incentive: The almighty dollar. I figured out how much I spent on caffeinated drinks over the course of 31 days and exaggerated it slightly and worked out to be $140 over the course of a month. As each day that I don't have caffeine passes, it lowers by $4.50. But if I do have a drink, it bumps back up to $140. At the end of the month, I give the people of Dry July the remaining amount. So if I have a drink on the last day, I have to pay $140 to dry July.

Like I said, I haven't had any drinks for the whole month passed. I have my doubts about having a drink now. Though I do want to taste a V.


that is a nice update I reckon. I'll catch you kids on the flip side.