I go away for three weeks and jeez things have changed. To start, there's a house near the train station. It decided to get raised. It was already a 2 story house, but he needed it raised a few more feet. That took me by surprise on the wander back from the station.
Nextly there's the house at the first corner down from my place. It had a yard that was full of trees, lucious and plump. You could hardly see the house through them and the privacy fence they had going on. Well now they've uprooted all those trees and now there's fuck all in that yard, after looking over the boards. Not sure why they didn't want to
Then I discovered that the footpath near my house has been repaved. That's not too bad. It was a raggedy old footpath, so no harm getting it fixed.
Lastly, I finally get home and see the sign out the front of my house: FOR SALE *If this sign is damaged or removed, there will be a Formal Investigation*.
Yeah, fan-fucking-tastic. Although it can come as a bit of a relief because I've been wanting to move out. The roomies need more time to themselves. Yes, I have been away for 3 weeks, giving them plenty of time to possibly sort their shit out, but I guess they just haven't done anything except panic that they have to move early.
The Real Estate say that if we want to move out before our lease is up, they are willing to pay for Removalists. This is good, though personally I can use my Ute, and I don't have that much in the way of my own gear. To boot, mum has offered room at her place so I can bunk in with her. But I don't want to stay back at mums for too long, as I'll feel a little too cramped in there. I have enough gear to fill up my own space, but I also have gear that should not be handled by little hands.
And my mum regularly has my niece and nephews over. So all of my modelling gear? I have no idea what to do with. I wouldn't be able to put it in my room because I won't have anywhere to really put them. I can't put them in the sewing room, because there's no room. And I can't just leave it sitting around, else the youngins run around picking it up and dropping it when someone yells out “NO”. That'll be a lot of hassle I don't want to deal with.
But it will have to come to that for at least a little while. Then there's my computer! Where will I put that?!
“oh you can just use mine” My Mother would say.
“uh, no. I play computer games mum. And sadly, the computers that you have had the business of acquiring have all died in the arse one way or another.”
“Okay, well we'll both just use yours then.”
“Uh, no. I can't take the chance that it is actually you that is making them die in the arse. Sorry mum.”
So I will have to stick with my little laptop, which is doing really well thank you very much. I've been dribbling shit over and over again, and I've even started my own Warmachine/Hordes blog (Introduction post this Friday) to match wits with my Monsterpocalypse Blog. It will probably be a bit more interesting, especially since I won't run out of subject matter any time soon. I just hope I don't reminisce about the first Edition Warmachine too much. That's become a bad habit of mine.
With coming home from Gencon, I've come back with a number of toys. Particularly a Pig Army that I'm excited about. I've got almost all the bits and bobs I want, and I've assembled 2 of the Warbeasts so I can use them in the Australian Nationals. It's a cool list with giant bipedal pigs, one of which has a clockwork ticker (called an Aggression Dial) and has robotic arms.
But I also picked up some books. Jenny and I went to a book store while I was there and we picked out some books for each other. I grabbed her the Tiffany Aching books for her to read. I know she will get a laugh out of those three. She picked me up a few funny books, like “What is your Poo telling you?”, “Cyanide and Happines – I'm giving you the finger” and I can't remember the third one. But I picked up three books for myself, particularly two novels based on Gears of War, and “The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the galaxy”. I've been told this is a weird but good set of books, so I picked it up. Enjoying the movie helped.
I wanted to read it on the way back to Aus, but I spent the 20 something hours reading “Hat Full of Sky” instead. But I've gotten into it now, and it's pretty funny. I can't quite get a grasp of the voice though. Usually if I'm reading something with dry Humour, I get a Stephen Fry voice run through my head. But this is different. I'll figure it out, I'm sure.
Also, out of habit, I’m trying to pick out the way he writes, which so far seems like he's rambling away on stage like a one man band trying to explain that he was doing opera. While I was reading Birmos Tassie Babes, it was a guy sitting across from you in the beer garden and holding a pint in hand. Actually, I woudln't be surprised if I wrote it doing exactly that.
Pratchett gives me a wonderful cartoon story that is either voiced over by him or Stephen Fry. This is my head, and the both of them have good voices. But he builds and builds and builds and lets down slightly before building again. It's a rollercoaster ride. Of Catherine Jinks, i've read the pagan chronicles, a 4 book series set during the Crusades. Its a good imagery of the time and era. Lian Hearn (Tales of the Otori - medieval japanese settings) gives a slightly mystical view of the world.
But Doug Adams is still growing on me. I'll figure him out. I am sure I will.
24 August 2010
I dont like planes any more.
It all started off ridiculously early. Jenny and I woke up at 2am to get ready for the 2 hour drive to Detroit so I could fly off to LAX for my final flight straight to Brisbane.
Naturally the difficulty of getting up at 2am after having only 2 hours sleep was fucked, but we did it, got ourselves ready, made sure I had everything packed, and then made tracks to Detroit.
Jenny and I got there 2 hours before my flight was due to leave, and we were disappointed to find that she was unable to join me up to the gate. We can do it in Australia, I figured it would be fine in America. Apparently not.
So we hung out in the Baggage Collection area, holding each other and having large biscuits with massive chunks of chocolate in them, and Jenny had a tea that she didn't finish due to an upset stomach. So upset that she got upset all over the ladies bathroom.
Eventually it was time to party ways and return to what was our normal lives. We don't want to return to such bleak settings, but our responsibilities remain and we must go back to the grind. We kissed, and we hugged, and we slowly parted.
Later did I learn that she waited in the carpark to blow kisses to my plane as I left.
Four hours later, I landed in LA to endure the 12 hours before my flight began boarding. That's right, I turned up at LAX at 1100 and my flight wasn't due to leave until 2355. Bullshit I say. Especially since I had to wait until 1430 before I could check in!
Time passed, I typed some shit, and made a few calls to jenny before I checked in and went inside to continue awaiting my plane to brisneyland. And while I was in there, I had dinner at Gladstones Fish Restaurant. It sounded pleasant compared to Starbucks and Burger King. It wasn't. I ordered a cheeseburger and it was probably one of the worst put together burgers I've ever had.
*Shrug* Right now, sitting at the pick up road outside Virgin blue and awaiting the arrival of Kel, I'm craving the comfort food of Macca's: A Double Quarter Pounder with Big Mac Sauce, a Large Chips, a Frozen Fanta, and a Chocolate Sundae. Simple comfort food. I'll even shout Alex an Ice Cream Cone.
Returning back to the LAX Scenario, I now turn to the shenanigans which always occur at the arse end of the best times. At 1930, the members of my flight were informed that we should go to the right hand side of gate 38, opposite of the gates I was seated. The lad there informed me that my original flight at 2355 was cancelled due to Mechanical Malfunction. Which probably means that the new pilot had gotten too far on the piss because his girlfriend is off gallivanting across the countryside on some steward/ess.
So they shunted us off to Air New Zealand. It's not a bad mob. they're slightly cheaper than Qantas, who were the next option in line. After getting the majority of the flights done, it was down to seven of us. Air New Zealand was apparently full. Righto, we'll go onto Qantas.
"Oh no, we're waiting for 2 people to not show up. So two of you can stay."
Ugh. this whole debacle started at 1930, and it's fucking 2200 now. Get me home already. I was getting more and more tired, especially since my body clock was 3 hours out, and I hadn't eaten since I had that disgusting dinner at 1500. So what do I do?
I sit on the floor and continue reading Hat Full of Sky until they finally get their finger out. A little while later, I was on my new flight down to Auckland. I'd slept the better part of the 10-12 hour trip* which was surprising because those chairs couldn't get more uncomfortable if you inserted therapeutic needles into the upholstery, then gave it a vibrate function.
Arriving at Auckland, the overhead informed us about our connecting flight into Sydney was at Gate 2. "Righto," I said, paying attention and deviating slightly from Mr Pratchett and his tale of Tiffany Aching. Soon as we rolled off I realised something though.
"Fuck, i forgot my wallet." It's uncomfortable having it in your pocket after such a long flight, so I decided it would do well to be in the net pocket in front of me. I'd grab it on the way out, along with my passport, and then all will be good. But nooo, of all things I had to forget, it was my wallet that has $904 in green notes stuffed into the appropriate slot, and slowly ruining said wallet, of which requires renewing. There is only so much fake croc leather that can fall off before it becomes a danger to my finances.
So I sat at the door as people filtered by. And I waited. And I waited. And I fucking waited. And then i began thinking that someone may have seen my wallet and nabbed it. Or that I may have put it somewhere in the fucking heavy backpack that I have. Or that I could possibly leave it here and it would get sent to me at a later date. No no, that's a stupid idea, i need my GO Card to get to work the next day. Fucking monday, I don't want to go to work. I'm tired and still very much so in work mode. Oh look, a steward coming from upstairs. Is that a good- No, more people coming. God damn, are they mass producing these people? Do they have women in battery cages with turkey basters pumping out hormone pumped 5 minute adults so that I have to wait longer? Oh look, Pilots. There we go. End of the line, mother fuckers. Give me my money.
With that successfully accomplished, I made my way to the line through the International Connecting flights. at the end of the line were the security guards. okay, I can deal with this. At least the group I'm with are in the right direction. There's the family of 3 that I can follow. I can rely on them. The old boy seems to have his head on straight.
The security guards then put my bad aside. Seems I have something I shouldn't have. As it turns out, it was my LAB body wash that I'd all but used up with Jenny because she liked the way I smelt, and my Hair Gel and Face Wash which I'd never used as I didn't have any reason to spike my hair, and I'm simply too lazy to bother. So they've all gone to the Incinerator.
Moving on, I weedled my way to Gate 2. It was due to board about this time, and when I checked the Time Boards, it had a big red sign saying "Final Boarding". Right, I had to run and get to my plane. I ran up and then down and then back and then left and eventually I got to where I was looking for. Auckland Airport is a bit of a maze, but I got through to find that my plane had just buggered off. FUCK. FUCK A DUCK. Even the Janitor assured me that it was definitely gone.
So I wandered back up to one of the reception desks to say that i'd missed my flight, what can I do about getting a new flight? After about 5 minutes of waiting, I looked around and found a new Time Board. Okay. NZ103 Final boarding... Gate 7. Well shit biscuits. Lets go check out Gate 7.
Whaddayaknow. There's that family that I was following. Oh and another few people that were from the same pilgrimage. Game on. So we waddled onto that plane and I settled down for the 4 hour flight to Sydney, continuing my book of dry English humour.
Lastly was Sydney. The Shenanigannery was getting a bit much now. My body had a dull ache, and my book was almost finished. I just wanted to get it done now, I was on the home stretch, but I had to pay attention to this shit! C'mon, it isn't hard to get luggage out and onto a conveyor belt, is it now? Any old Ninny (Yes, Mr Pratchett being English sometimes makes my insults a little pommy) can chuck a bag onto them. It's not like you don't manhandle them as you would an Irish Wife. C'mon, I said it enough: True love comes out in Bruises. But you know what? I have a fuck tonne of models that didn't feel very loved. In fact, they were lovely before you fuckers decided to whack it with a fucking cricket bat in your spare time. now where the fuck is my luggage now? there's nothing particularly special about it now, except there's a dozen too many shirts in there. You can't deal damage to them! I put a fucking LOCK on it! But there's only 2 bags on the belt.
Mother fuckers. Righto, time to make note. So I went to the other side of the room and made mention that my bag was AWOL. "okay, we'll deliver it to your door soon. It just seems to be on a later flight from the same place. Here's our number in case you don't hear from us."
Righto. would've been nice to have my bag now, but hey. I go through the gates with my yellow card, another security lady takes my yellow card and lets me through with my carry on, and we I leave to get to Domestic transfers. A short line up there and then I go out to the T Bus... and fuck it's cold. I'm glad I have my Sonic Hoodie with me.
About a half hour goes past, about 10 minutes late for what they advertise for T-Busses, We get to the Domestic Terminal, I jump through the security hoops again, only I get to keep my shoes on this time. I get to the gate, the correct gate as well which I made sure every 5 minutes that I was at the right gate because I have been wrong before and it nearly cost me.
I also make an attempt at finding a power point. Where the fuck are the power points? I have a phone that I need to contact Kel/Tash about picking me up and letting them know that If they were busy, then it would be fine and I would catch a taxi. I'm sure a Taxi driver won't mind extra fare if he takes me through Maccas.
But no such luck. I typed up a little bit where I was about my Warmachine blog, continued the Terry Pratchett book, and eventually made my way onto the worst flight of the lot. It wasn't because it was a short flight. I loved that. It was much shorter than I expected and I was very VERY pleased to find that out. But it was the inertia. Going up was rough as guts. Going through turbulence was like being in the prank Bart Simpson did to Homer (remember when he shook up the Duff can and exploded the house as an April Fools?). landing and taxiing were about as pleasant as could be, because I got hit with so much relief that we fucking survived.
But that was it. That was my long day and a half. Kel came and picked me up, drove me to Maccas, made a quick detour to Aldi, and dropped me home to have my comfort food and pass out by 5:30 so that i could be well rested for work tomorrow.
Guh.
Naturally the difficulty of getting up at 2am after having only 2 hours sleep was fucked, but we did it, got ourselves ready, made sure I had everything packed, and then made tracks to Detroit.
Jenny and I got there 2 hours before my flight was due to leave, and we were disappointed to find that she was unable to join me up to the gate. We can do it in Australia, I figured it would be fine in America. Apparently not.
So we hung out in the Baggage Collection area, holding each other and having large biscuits with massive chunks of chocolate in them, and Jenny had a tea that she didn't finish due to an upset stomach. So upset that she got upset all over the ladies bathroom.
Eventually it was time to party ways and return to what was our normal lives. We don't want to return to such bleak settings, but our responsibilities remain and we must go back to the grind. We kissed, and we hugged, and we slowly parted.
Later did I learn that she waited in the carpark to blow kisses to my plane as I left.
Four hours later, I landed in LA to endure the 12 hours before my flight began boarding. That's right, I turned up at LAX at 1100 and my flight wasn't due to leave until 2355. Bullshit I say. Especially since I had to wait until 1430 before I could check in!
Time passed, I typed some shit, and made a few calls to jenny before I checked in and went inside to continue awaiting my plane to brisneyland. And while I was in there, I had dinner at Gladstones Fish Restaurant. It sounded pleasant compared to Starbucks and Burger King. It wasn't. I ordered a cheeseburger and it was probably one of the worst put together burgers I've ever had.
*Shrug* Right now, sitting at the pick up road outside Virgin blue and awaiting the arrival of Kel, I'm craving the comfort food of Macca's: A Double Quarter Pounder with Big Mac Sauce, a Large Chips, a Frozen Fanta, and a Chocolate Sundae. Simple comfort food. I'll even shout Alex an Ice Cream Cone.
Returning back to the LAX Scenario, I now turn to the shenanigans which always occur at the arse end of the best times. At 1930, the members of my flight were informed that we should go to the right hand side of gate 38, opposite of the gates I was seated. The lad there informed me that my original flight at 2355 was cancelled due to Mechanical Malfunction. Which probably means that the new pilot had gotten too far on the piss because his girlfriend is off gallivanting across the countryside on some steward/ess.
So they shunted us off to Air New Zealand. It's not a bad mob. they're slightly cheaper than Qantas, who were the next option in line. After getting the majority of the flights done, it was down to seven of us. Air New Zealand was apparently full. Righto, we'll go onto Qantas.
"Oh no, we're waiting for 2 people to not show up. So two of you can stay."
Ugh. this whole debacle started at 1930, and it's fucking 2200 now. Get me home already. I was getting more and more tired, especially since my body clock was 3 hours out, and I hadn't eaten since I had that disgusting dinner at 1500. So what do I do?
I sit on the floor and continue reading Hat Full of Sky until they finally get their finger out. A little while later, I was on my new flight down to Auckland. I'd slept the better part of the 10-12 hour trip* which was surprising because those chairs couldn't get more uncomfortable if you inserted therapeutic needles into the upholstery, then gave it a vibrate function.
* - from a later date: I mentioned the flight to a friend who regularly goes to New Zealand to see his Dad, and I said that to Brisbane/Sydney it's a 14 hour flight to/from LAX. "Yeah, that means it's an 18 hour flight between Auckland and LA then."
"What? No, it's about 10-12 hours."
"No no, it's 18."
"Dude, I just had the flight. It's 10 hours."
"nah man, it's 18 hours cos it's 4 hours to sydney to auckland, and 14 hours to LA from Sydney."
True story.
Arriving at Auckland, the overhead informed us about our connecting flight into Sydney was at Gate 2. "Righto," I said, paying attention and deviating slightly from Mr Pratchett and his tale of Tiffany Aching. Soon as we rolled off I realised something though.
"Fuck, i forgot my wallet." It's uncomfortable having it in your pocket after such a long flight, so I decided it would do well to be in the net pocket in front of me. I'd grab it on the way out, along with my passport, and then all will be good. But nooo, of all things I had to forget, it was my wallet that has $904 in green notes stuffed into the appropriate slot, and slowly ruining said wallet, of which requires renewing. There is only so much fake croc leather that can fall off before it becomes a danger to my finances.
So I sat at the door as people filtered by. And I waited. And I waited. And I fucking waited. And then i began thinking that someone may have seen my wallet and nabbed it. Or that I may have put it somewhere in the fucking heavy backpack that I have. Or that I could possibly leave it here and it would get sent to me at a later date. No no, that's a stupid idea, i need my GO Card to get to work the next day. Fucking monday, I don't want to go to work. I'm tired and still very much so in work mode. Oh look, a steward coming from upstairs. Is that a good- No, more people coming. God damn, are they mass producing these people? Do they have women in battery cages with turkey basters pumping out hormone pumped 5 minute adults so that I have to wait longer? Oh look, Pilots. There we go. End of the line, mother fuckers. Give me my money.
With that successfully accomplished, I made my way to the line through the International Connecting flights. at the end of the line were the security guards. okay, I can deal with this. At least the group I'm with are in the right direction. There's the family of 3 that I can follow. I can rely on them. The old boy seems to have his head on straight.
The security guards then put my bad aside. Seems I have something I shouldn't have. As it turns out, it was my LAB body wash that I'd all but used up with Jenny because she liked the way I smelt, and my Hair Gel and Face Wash which I'd never used as I didn't have any reason to spike my hair, and I'm simply too lazy to bother. So they've all gone to the Incinerator.
Moving on, I weedled my way to Gate 2. It was due to board about this time, and when I checked the Time Boards, it had a big red sign saying "Final Boarding". Right, I had to run and get to my plane. I ran up and then down and then back and then left and eventually I got to where I was looking for. Auckland Airport is a bit of a maze, but I got through to find that my plane had just buggered off. FUCK. FUCK A DUCK. Even the Janitor assured me that it was definitely gone.
So I wandered back up to one of the reception desks to say that i'd missed my flight, what can I do about getting a new flight? After about 5 minutes of waiting, I looked around and found a new Time Board. Okay. NZ103 Final boarding... Gate 7. Well shit biscuits. Lets go check out Gate 7.
Whaddayaknow. There's that family that I was following. Oh and another few people that were from the same pilgrimage. Game on. So we waddled onto that plane and I settled down for the 4 hour flight to Sydney, continuing my book of dry English humour.
Lastly was Sydney. The Shenanigannery was getting a bit much now. My body had a dull ache, and my book was almost finished. I just wanted to get it done now, I was on the home stretch, but I had to pay attention to this shit! C'mon, it isn't hard to get luggage out and onto a conveyor belt, is it now? Any old Ninny (Yes, Mr Pratchett being English sometimes makes my insults a little pommy) can chuck a bag onto them. It's not like you don't manhandle them as you would an Irish Wife. C'mon, I said it enough: True love comes out in Bruises. But you know what? I have a fuck tonne of models that didn't feel very loved. In fact, they were lovely before you fuckers decided to whack it with a fucking cricket bat in your spare time. now where the fuck is my luggage now? there's nothing particularly special about it now, except there's a dozen too many shirts in there. You can't deal damage to them! I put a fucking LOCK on it! But there's only 2 bags on the belt.
Mother fuckers. Righto, time to make note. So I went to the other side of the room and made mention that my bag was AWOL. "okay, we'll deliver it to your door soon. It just seems to be on a later flight from the same place. Here's our number in case you don't hear from us."
Righto. would've been nice to have my bag now, but hey. I go through the gates with my yellow card, another security lady takes my yellow card and lets me through with my carry on, and we I leave to get to Domestic transfers. A short line up there and then I go out to the T Bus... and fuck it's cold. I'm glad I have my Sonic Hoodie with me.
About a half hour goes past, about 10 minutes late for what they advertise for T-Busses, We get to the Domestic Terminal, I jump through the security hoops again, only I get to keep my shoes on this time. I get to the gate, the correct gate as well which I made sure every 5 minutes that I was at the right gate because I have been wrong before and it nearly cost me.
I also make an attempt at finding a power point. Where the fuck are the power points? I have a phone that I need to contact Kel/Tash about picking me up and letting them know that If they were busy, then it would be fine and I would catch a taxi. I'm sure a Taxi driver won't mind extra fare if he takes me through Maccas.
But no such luck. I typed up a little bit where I was about my Warmachine blog, continued the Terry Pratchett book, and eventually made my way onto the worst flight of the lot. It wasn't because it was a short flight. I loved that. It was much shorter than I expected and I was very VERY pleased to find that out. But it was the inertia. Going up was rough as guts. Going through turbulence was like being in the prank Bart Simpson did to Homer (remember when he shook up the Duff can and exploded the house as an April Fools?). landing and taxiing were about as pleasant as could be, because I got hit with so much relief that we fucking survived.
But that was it. That was my long day and a half. Kel came and picked me up, drove me to Maccas, made a quick detour to Aldi, and dropped me home to have my comfort food and pass out by 5:30 so that i could be well rested for work tomorrow.
Guh.
Written on the way out
I just left my girlfriend at the security gate of Detroit Metropolitan Airport. I don't know what to say. i'm going to miss her and our time together, just as much as she is. I may not show it, by not getting all teary as I kissed her goodbye. i didn't even look back, now that I think about it. I don't know if she walked to her car as quickly as possible, or waited for me to take one last look at her. I took my last look as I kissed her goodbye and thanked her for wishing me well on my flight, looking into those sad, beautiful eyes.
It has been the most amazing two weeks I've ever had. And I don't want to wait until january to see her again. I don't want to stay away from her more than I have to. I just want to run back and catch her as she's driving out of the carpark and tell her to drive home with me so i can sleep with her next to me for a few more hours.
I just need those few more hours again. That's it. Just a few more hours. And at the end of those hours i'll demand more. And more. Just a few more hours I'll keep saying, over and over. Next thing I know, it'll be january and she'll be snuggling up to me more and more as it gets colder and colder. I'll cuddle her more and more and we won't leave her apartment for ANY reason.
Just a few more hours and I'll be fine. I won't need to cry. I will feel satisfied. More than satisfied.
I know she's still in the carpark, crying to herself, knowing that I'm so far away and that home will be so empty without me, feeling more alone than she has ever been.
"This is harder than divorce" she told me last night. I'm willing to believe her. This is hard. Extremely hard. I don't want to go to the house with that empty bed. I want to go home to where she is. It's as simple as that.
I Love her.
It has been the most amazing two weeks I've ever had. And I don't want to wait until january to see her again. I don't want to stay away from her more than I have to. I just want to run back and catch her as she's driving out of the carpark and tell her to drive home with me so i can sleep with her next to me for a few more hours.
I just need those few more hours again. That's it. Just a few more hours. And at the end of those hours i'll demand more. And more. Just a few more hours I'll keep saying, over and over. Next thing I know, it'll be january and she'll be snuggling up to me more and more as it gets colder and colder. I'll cuddle her more and more and we won't leave her apartment for ANY reason.
Just a few more hours and I'll be fine. I won't need to cry. I will feel satisfied. More than satisfied.
I know she's still in the carpark, crying to herself, knowing that I'm so far away and that home will be so empty without me, feeling more alone than she has ever been.
"This is harder than divorce" she told me last night. I'm willing to believe her. This is hard. Extremely hard. I don't want to go to the house with that empty bed. I want to go home to where she is. It's as simple as that.
I Love her.
16 August 2010
Jencon etc
there are many things i can say about jenny. So so many things. i can't list them because frankly the last week has been... mind blowing.
After 8 months, we have finally met. It was an awkward meet, where she was only a few minutes late to the luggage pick up. Which wasn't too much of a problem because frankly the Detroit Airport is so fucking long from the gate I almost died getting there. I really wish I caught the tram they have there.
I stood at the gate pick up waiting for her and she had just found a park and was on her way, walking through the bridge and down the stairs to find me. I got a little worried after about 10 minutes when i hadn't found her, but just as I called her she was walking through the doors.
We looked at each other and there was the shyness we kept for all 2 hours. We laughed and joked as we got lost in the Car Park Building, finding the strangeness of having to go up levels to get out onto ground level.
We talked about stuff all the way back to her place, the whole two hours. She joked as we passed Jackson about feeling at home, since Jackson is apparently a town full of correctional centres. Oh she is sooo Funny. Making funny jokes about how Australians are all Convicts? She should go to Second City or something.
But we got to her place, she took me on a tour, and I met Taz. Taz loves me, the little shit. He cuddles up, puts his head on my lap, he brings his little torn up toy to me so I can throw it across the room and he could go chasing it to bring it back and fight for me to take it off him. He also sniffs my hair and rolls around on my head, because he's a weird little fucker. I've been told that my head smells like its been washed with a Bug Bomb, so Taz has a weird ass sense of taste.
I met Penny as well, and sadly she didn't take to me very well at first because Taz got away and chased her all around the house. Consequentially Jenny and I got copped with a back case of the Fuck offs. But she has eventually come around and started meowing at me for Pettins and rubbing against my leg.
On tuesday, we went out to see Jennys parents at Shakespeares, a regular drinking hole for her family, and we all enjoyed ourselves. They made me feel really comfortable with them. The Thursday afterwards, Jenny and I went to Lansing to see her Uncle Gregg and his partner Matthew. Gregg was fun, and Matthew was entertaining as he just kept throwing curious questions my way about anything and everything. Like what things are like at home and what cultural differences there are.
The Saturday involved me and jenny going to Jennys parents place to introduce me to the rest of the family and her friends. It was a good day and there was giggles to be had everywhere. They even made me some beans! But all the family enjoyed me, had a good laugh and got a few shocks out of some of the lines I pulled. I even swore in front of Jennys Grandmother!
Yeah, I'm probably going to hell.
We went and saw Scott Pilgrim vs the World that night as well with Scott and Amanda (Jennys Brother and his girlfriend). I was a little entranced by the movie, while Jenny spent the night cuddling up to me, and i'd turn over to make out with her for a few minutes.
Otherwise we have been lazing about doing whatever. It has been really fun, and while she thinks that she's boring the living crap out of me, I really not. I feel like I've been gifted with relaxation, kisses and cuddles. We've spent the day laying in bed and snoozing; i've made her toasted cheese sandwiches for brunch; she's made me cinnamon rolls for breakfast. It's been wonderful and I really don't want to leave.
Which is what everyone keeps saying to me! "You can't stay there! You have to come back!" I got an email today saying "Matt, you have to come back. I'm going crazy." And Mum keeps emailing me saying "Where's my daily email" and I'm like "it's in the post..."
*Sigh* I dread the flight going home. And not because of the 18 hours to get home.a
After 8 months, we have finally met. It was an awkward meet, where she was only a few minutes late to the luggage pick up. Which wasn't too much of a problem because frankly the Detroit Airport is so fucking long from the gate I almost died getting there. I really wish I caught the tram they have there.
I stood at the gate pick up waiting for her and she had just found a park and was on her way, walking through the bridge and down the stairs to find me. I got a little worried after about 10 minutes when i hadn't found her, but just as I called her she was walking through the doors.
We looked at each other and there was the shyness we kept for all 2 hours. We laughed and joked as we got lost in the Car Park Building, finding the strangeness of having to go up levels to get out onto ground level.
We talked about stuff all the way back to her place, the whole two hours. She joked as we passed Jackson about feeling at home, since Jackson is apparently a town full of correctional centres. Oh she is sooo Funny. Making funny jokes about how Australians are all Convicts? She should go to Second City or something.
But we got to her place, she took me on a tour, and I met Taz. Taz loves me, the little shit. He cuddles up, puts his head on my lap, he brings his little torn up toy to me so I can throw it across the room and he could go chasing it to bring it back and fight for me to take it off him. He also sniffs my hair and rolls around on my head, because he's a weird little fucker. I've been told that my head smells like its been washed with a Bug Bomb, so Taz has a weird ass sense of taste.
I met Penny as well, and sadly she didn't take to me very well at first because Taz got away and chased her all around the house. Consequentially Jenny and I got copped with a back case of the Fuck offs. But she has eventually come around and started meowing at me for Pettins and rubbing against my leg.
On tuesday, we went out to see Jennys parents at Shakespeares, a regular drinking hole for her family, and we all enjoyed ourselves. They made me feel really comfortable with them. The Thursday afterwards, Jenny and I went to Lansing to see her Uncle Gregg and his partner Matthew. Gregg was fun, and Matthew was entertaining as he just kept throwing curious questions my way about anything and everything. Like what things are like at home and what cultural differences there are.
The Saturday involved me and jenny going to Jennys parents place to introduce me to the rest of the family and her friends. It was a good day and there was giggles to be had everywhere. They even made me some beans! But all the family enjoyed me, had a good laugh and got a few shocks out of some of the lines I pulled. I even swore in front of Jennys Grandmother!
Yeah, I'm probably going to hell.
We went and saw Scott Pilgrim vs the World that night as well with Scott and Amanda (Jennys Brother and his girlfriend). I was a little entranced by the movie, while Jenny spent the night cuddling up to me, and i'd turn over to make out with her for a few minutes.
Otherwise we have been lazing about doing whatever. It has been really fun, and while she thinks that she's boring the living crap out of me, I really not. I feel like I've been gifted with relaxation, kisses and cuddles. We've spent the day laying in bed and snoozing; i've made her toasted cheese sandwiches for brunch; she's made me cinnamon rolls for breakfast. It's been wonderful and I really don't want to leave.
Which is what everyone keeps saying to me! "You can't stay there! You have to come back!" I got an email today saying "Matt, you have to come back. I'm going crazy." And Mum keeps emailing me saying "Where's my daily email" and I'm like "it's in the post..."
*Sigh* I dread the flight going home. And not because of the 18 hours to get home.a
10 August 2010
GenJencon - Days 4 and 5
Today began as a boring day. I went off to the Convention hall and picked up a few bits and bobs that people demanded over the intarwebatrons (Damn you Toby and Disco *Shakes fist*) before coming back to the Hotel to assemble my models while Scotty and Aaron dozed off into oblivion.
I also got to see the guys from "Least I Could Do" and yes: Larz de Souza looks EXACTLY like his Caricature. His beard may be a little thicker.
On the flight over, my figures were poorly handled on the flight over, so when I opened my bag to find whether or not my figures were intact... well the majority thereof were not. And so today was preparing for tomorrow, and assembling my figures as well as possible.
And luckily that was the case. I was very successful and now they should be pretty much set after being left alone for a good 12+ hours.
By the time I was done, I began talking with Jenny. I love Jenny and she was having a bad morning. While she was in court, a dude sitting next to her put his hand down his pants and played with himself 3 times. Now, it wasn't because of her (necessarily) because he was sitting there and slapping himself and doing other rather odd things, but it really rattled Jennys cage. So during her lunch hour, I spent the time chatting with her over the phone, and hoped to cheer her up. I believe I was successful.
The creepy thing was that I was slowly pacing a patch of grass at an intersection, and i didn't expect anyone to come and bother me because I was on the phone. But I turned around and all of a sudden, there's Scott the creepy bastard. Suddenly turned up with a hotdog or something, just waiting for me to finish my conversation with Jenny.
From that point, after letting jenny get back to work, Scotty and I went back into the convention to have a wander about, because Scotty had been playing games all day so he didn't have much of a chance to explore.
The day rolled on and my knees were getting weak. The ached and groaned so I went back to the Hotel to give them a rest, and I drifted off to sleep for about an hour, maybe more. It'll probably adjust better when I get to Jennys place next week.
But tonight was the plan for the PP Dinner. Jason and I prepared and caught the hotel cab over and when we got there... we weren't sure what to do. We played a few games of pool, and had a few drinks to loosen up. The pool was entertaining because there was a significant slope, so there were a few shots that were just a little bit ridiculous.
Unfortunately, halfway through the night, I dropped my phone. And it was the last straw for my phone. The keyboard has completely fallen off, and it was really not cool at the time because Jenny was having a bad time as well. I really wanted to get back in contact with her and to top it off, when I got back to the Hotel i couldn't access the net! I'm lucky this morning I can access it so I've been sending her messages all morning.
We met a few awesome people from PP. Polar Bear considers me a bit of a Rock Star so we got a photo together and he introduced us to a few more people here and there. I'm having trouble remembering names, except for the Really funny guy, Trigger. That's his forum name because I've forgotten his actual name.
Jason and I did end up with some free stuff though. We both got a free Skorne book, which is annoying because I already bought my copies thinking that I'll get a copy of Primal, and I got a free Whitemoon Dreams shirt and Jason got Mark 1 Gold Cards.
Speaking of Whitemoon Dreams, some of the development staff were at the Party and they gave us a private Screening of the Warmachine Video Game. It looks pretty good. I've been comparing the gameplay to God of War, where it's a bunch of button mashing over and over, but it still looks interesting enough to make for a good game. At worst, it's still a game set within the Iron Kingdoms.
Afterwards, Jen, Trigger, Polar Bear, Jason and I toddled back down to the arena to find Scotty and Aaron still playing Warmachine/Hordes until the wee hours of the night before Jason and I eventually decided to turn in.
The next morning, Scotty and Aaron didn't really come back to the Hotel. They actually stayed at the iron arena, because it goes on until the end of the Convention. Yes, 24 hours a day over the 4 days.
To make repayment to the Privateer Press crew for hosting a pretty sweet party, I had to do a 4 hour shift of game demoing. It was good fun, showing people the ropes and giving them demos on how the game works by... well actually giving them a game and letting the players take home a copy of the quickstart rules. It started off pretty good, people were coming and going, but by the last hour it just suddenly went dead. So me and a couple of other guys were standing there twiddling our thumbs.
At about 1, just before the dead part of the shift, Aaron came to me to inform that he had been playing for near on 24 hours. He began talking in a purposely quick accent, muffling his words with his inanity, and he informed that Scotty had reached his 100 Skull limit. You see, playing Iron Arena, you earn "Skulls" as you play games or do certain things within Privateer Press, such as play a game under a scenario, play a demo over at the booth, or go down on the Goblin King.
I'll explain that last one later.
But Scotty looked over the prizes and found 2 he was actually interested in getting. The first was a Mega he chose from a pile they had. He wanted a Mega Defender X for his Monsterpocalypse set because he doesn't have one yet, or he could save up and get a Hordes Print of his favourite faction.
After discovering that there was no Defender X, he took the time and effort to play enough games to earn enough "Skulls" to get his print. And he played through about 25-30 games so he could get a Lylyth Print. He had good fun, and he slept through for about 18 hours afterwards.
My day otherwise was spent having my handful of games for the whole weekend. While I would've liked to have played more games, I just got excited about everything else and didn't bother getting too far into it. But I had 3 games, one with Jason, another with Aaron and one with a guy who I've completely forgotten the name of, which is sad. I remember him by face though.
Naturally I lost all three games, but everyone was quite intimidated by the pilings of Man-O-War standing in front of them. I even used Epic Irusk's feat to pull off a good turn to stall. Jason and I had the game we owed each other, after over a year. Twas a good game, and I eliminated one unit of Revenant Crew without even trying, but I admit I had a little trouble with the second lot. Stupid Quartermaster being stuck behind a bunch of trees.
The day went by, and shenanigans were had. Polar_Bear, Trigger, jason and I laughed at the Goblin King, knowing that what has been gobbled will never been ungobbled.
You see, the Goblin King has a particular charm to him, and he sits on his throne at the entrance to the gaming rooms. And as people approach, they see him grinning on his throne at the little plebeians that are passing him. But occasionally, he will mentally pick someone out and they will do a service for him.
It's good be the king.
Later that night, talking with Jen from the Privateer Press Booth, we were introduced to who I didn't expect to be Scalpel from England, and I didn't know that it was him until later the next day. I was completely unaware at the time, and I just figured he was a really nice Pom, same with his mate (Who I've forgotten the name of. it's been a few days since then, leave me alone.) Jen, Jason, David Carl, Jess Carl, the englishmen, and two more PP Staff went out to dinner. The 9 of us wandered over to the RAM to see if we could get a table, but unfortunately it was packed to the Brim. So we wandered further on and found the Hard Rock Cafe, waited for a little while which I used the time to call Jenny (my phone bill will be huge this month btw), before we went inside and chatted the night away. The Pom that wasn't Scalpel decided to have some fun though and ordered up a B52.
Never heard of a B52 before but I was willing to try it. Because it was a shot, I thought I'd leave it for a bit and just join him by starting with a Jagerbomb. But we had the B52's and it was really nice. Strong, but nice. Tasted like Caramel.
It was a good night, and we headed back to the Convention and I had a game with Aaron before going home and passing out quite nicely.
Turns out Scott and Jason were in the same bed too. Jason was the big spoon.
I also got to see the guys from "Least I Could Do" and yes: Larz de Souza looks EXACTLY like his Caricature. His beard may be a little thicker.
On the flight over, my figures were poorly handled on the flight over, so when I opened my bag to find whether or not my figures were intact... well the majority thereof were not. And so today was preparing for tomorrow, and assembling my figures as well as possible.
And luckily that was the case. I was very successful and now they should be pretty much set after being left alone for a good 12+ hours.
By the time I was done, I began talking with Jenny. I love Jenny and she was having a bad morning. While she was in court, a dude sitting next to her put his hand down his pants and played with himself 3 times. Now, it wasn't because of her (necessarily) because he was sitting there and slapping himself and doing other rather odd things, but it really rattled Jennys cage. So during her lunch hour, I spent the time chatting with her over the phone, and hoped to cheer her up. I believe I was successful.
The creepy thing was that I was slowly pacing a patch of grass at an intersection, and i didn't expect anyone to come and bother me because I was on the phone. But I turned around and all of a sudden, there's Scott the creepy bastard. Suddenly turned up with a hotdog or something, just waiting for me to finish my conversation with Jenny.
From that point, after letting jenny get back to work, Scotty and I went back into the convention to have a wander about, because Scotty had been playing games all day so he didn't have much of a chance to explore.
The day rolled on and my knees were getting weak. The ached and groaned so I went back to the Hotel to give them a rest, and I drifted off to sleep for about an hour, maybe more. It'll probably adjust better when I get to Jennys place next week.
But tonight was the plan for the PP Dinner. Jason and I prepared and caught the hotel cab over and when we got there... we weren't sure what to do. We played a few games of pool, and had a few drinks to loosen up. The pool was entertaining because there was a significant slope, so there were a few shots that were just a little bit ridiculous.
Unfortunately, halfway through the night, I dropped my phone. And it was the last straw for my phone. The keyboard has completely fallen off, and it was really not cool at the time because Jenny was having a bad time as well. I really wanted to get back in contact with her and to top it off, when I got back to the Hotel i couldn't access the net! I'm lucky this morning I can access it so I've been sending her messages all morning.
We met a few awesome people from PP. Polar Bear considers me a bit of a Rock Star so we got a photo together and he introduced us to a few more people here and there. I'm having trouble remembering names, except for the Really funny guy, Trigger. That's his forum name because I've forgotten his actual name.
Jason and I did end up with some free stuff though. We both got a free Skorne book, which is annoying because I already bought my copies thinking that I'll get a copy of Primal, and I got a free Whitemoon Dreams shirt and Jason got Mark 1 Gold Cards.
Speaking of Whitemoon Dreams, some of the development staff were at the Party and they gave us a private Screening of the Warmachine Video Game. It looks pretty good. I've been comparing the gameplay to God of War, where it's a bunch of button mashing over and over, but it still looks interesting enough to make for a good game. At worst, it's still a game set within the Iron Kingdoms.
Afterwards, Jen, Trigger, Polar Bear, Jason and I toddled back down to the arena to find Scotty and Aaron still playing Warmachine/Hordes until the wee hours of the night before Jason and I eventually decided to turn in.
The next morning, Scotty and Aaron didn't really come back to the Hotel. They actually stayed at the iron arena, because it goes on until the end of the Convention. Yes, 24 hours a day over the 4 days.
To make repayment to the Privateer Press crew for hosting a pretty sweet party, I had to do a 4 hour shift of game demoing. It was good fun, showing people the ropes and giving them demos on how the game works by... well actually giving them a game and letting the players take home a copy of the quickstart rules. It started off pretty good, people were coming and going, but by the last hour it just suddenly went dead. So me and a couple of other guys were standing there twiddling our thumbs.
At about 1, just before the dead part of the shift, Aaron came to me to inform that he had been playing for near on 24 hours. He began talking in a purposely quick accent, muffling his words with his inanity, and he informed that Scotty had reached his 100 Skull limit. You see, playing Iron Arena, you earn "Skulls" as you play games or do certain things within Privateer Press, such as play a game under a scenario, play a demo over at the booth, or go down on the Goblin King.
I'll explain that last one later.
But Scotty looked over the prizes and found 2 he was actually interested in getting. The first was a Mega he chose from a pile they had. He wanted a Mega Defender X for his Monsterpocalypse set because he doesn't have one yet, or he could save up and get a Hordes Print of his favourite faction.
After discovering that there was no Defender X, he took the time and effort to play enough games to earn enough "Skulls" to get his print. And he played through about 25-30 games so he could get a Lylyth Print. He had good fun, and he slept through for about 18 hours afterwards.
My day otherwise was spent having my handful of games for the whole weekend. While I would've liked to have played more games, I just got excited about everything else and didn't bother getting too far into it. But I had 3 games, one with Jason, another with Aaron and one with a guy who I've completely forgotten the name of, which is sad. I remember him by face though.
Naturally I lost all three games, but everyone was quite intimidated by the pilings of Man-O-War standing in front of them. I even used Epic Irusk's feat to pull off a good turn to stall. Jason and I had the game we owed each other, after over a year. Twas a good game, and I eliminated one unit of Revenant Crew without even trying, but I admit I had a little trouble with the second lot. Stupid Quartermaster being stuck behind a bunch of trees.
The day went by, and shenanigans were had. Polar_Bear, Trigger, jason and I laughed at the Goblin King, knowing that what has been gobbled will never been ungobbled.
You see, the Goblin King has a particular charm to him, and he sits on his throne at the entrance to the gaming rooms. And as people approach, they see him grinning on his throne at the little plebeians that are passing him. But occasionally, he will mentally pick someone out and they will do a service for him.
It's good be the king.
Later that night, talking with Jen from the Privateer Press Booth, we were introduced to who I didn't expect to be Scalpel from England, and I didn't know that it was him until later the next day. I was completely unaware at the time, and I just figured he was a really nice Pom, same with his mate (Who I've forgotten the name of. it's been a few days since then, leave me alone.) Jen, Jason, David Carl, Jess Carl, the englishmen, and two more PP Staff went out to dinner. The 9 of us wandered over to the RAM to see if we could get a table, but unfortunately it was packed to the Brim. So we wandered further on and found the Hard Rock Cafe, waited for a little while which I used the time to call Jenny (my phone bill will be huge this month btw), before we went inside and chatted the night away. The Pom that wasn't Scalpel decided to have some fun though and ordered up a B52.
Never heard of a B52 before but I was willing to try it. Because it was a shot, I thought I'd leave it for a bit and just join him by starting with a Jagerbomb. But we had the B52's and it was really nice. Strong, but nice. Tasted like Caramel.
It was a good night, and we headed back to the Convention and I had a game with Aaron before going home and passing out quite nicely.
Turns out Scott and Jason were in the same bed too. Jason was the big spoon.
Right
I'm sorry for the lack of updates.
But I just spent the most amazing last 24 hours. There was even pizza involved!
@Girl Clumsy & Birmo: Jenny loves the gifts, and she is excited to try out the Aero and is definitely excited to read her Cameo in After America.
But I just spent the most amazing last 24 hours. There was even pizza involved!
@Girl Clumsy & Birmo: Jenny loves the gifts, and she is excited to try out the Aero and is definitely excited to read her Cameo in After America.
06 August 2010
GenJenCon - Day 3
Jason lives! He arrived at 2:30 in the morning yelling "MEDWAY! LET ME IN!" The poor fella was stuck at Chicago airport for over 12 hours due to 3 reasons.
The first was bad weather. Fair enough, you don't want to fly out during a bad storm which could potentially throw your plane back down to the ground with a sickening thud.
The second was a fire. A british airways plane had to make an emergency landing in Chicago because one of it's landing gears were ablaze.
The third was because Obama flew in.
Right. So he eventually got a flight in before the next day, which is good considering he hadn't been able to sleep. Oh what's this? Is he travelling light?
"No no, my bag hasn't arrived yet. They'll be delivering it tomorrow sometime."
Oh dear. That's not cool.
Well with Aaron not tired and myself feeling really tired, Jason took over aarons bed and we drifted off to sleep until the next morning. Jason slept in and planned on staying until his gear got delivered, while Aaron, Scott and I toddled off down to the convention.
Now I thought some of this was pre-done for me. I thought aaron said he'd already picked up my badge for the event. Apparently not. So after going between about 3-4 lines, I ended up at the disgustingly long line of Badge Registration. We were lucky that the event wasn't due to open until about 10am, so I wasn't going to be late into the convention.
after I picked up my badge, I wandered off to find call Scotty and see where he was, and I looked up to find Aaron and Scotty were already walking past. So I walked up to them and followed their direction. They wanted breakfast, so we wandered over to the food court of the Mall across the road.
We tried something safe: Subway. the surprise was that they don't have the same cheese as Australia. Instead of Cheddar, old English, Swiss and Mozarella... well I can't really remember the name of their cheeses except for Monterey Jack which is the one I put on my Bacon and egg.
It wasn't a bad sandwich.
So we moved back to the convention hall and we split up. Scotty went back to grab some things from the hotel, and Aaron did the same a little while later, which left me to map out the Hall itself. I wandered up and down those pathways looking at all of the interesting stuff they have on sale.
I found a gift for Sam (From the Gold Coast): A pair of goggles. She's been having trouble finding goggles for MONTHS so I thought I'd send her a nice pair as a gift. I had trouble finding the Blind Ferret booth for Kelvin's book he wanted, but after looking at the Program I've found out where it is so I'll be moseying over to there today (it's day 4 atm).
And the Privateer Booth. Ah, it's interesting. Their Gencon exclusives are a bunch of new character jacks for the main factions of Warmachine. I picked a Khador one up along with a bunch of other stuff including Pigs and a new battlebox. In total, i think I've spent about $450 on myself, and a Gunbjornn for someone else.
After grabbing my stuff, I found the gaming hall. It's fucking massive, for starters. There were about 128 tables available for the PP games area (I could be exaggerating a little) and there were 96 players for the tournament they had! That's about 10 hours of play over 5 rounds! JEEZ.
I was sick of carrying my stuff at this point. So I asked Scott if he wanted me to take his stuff back and I sauntered off back to the hotel. It's about a 10 minute walk, including crosswalks.
Upon arrival, the cleaning lady was preparing beds while Jason sad in the chair reading his book shirtless. Turns out he had hand washed his shirt because his luggage still hadn't turned up. I offered him a shirt and to come out to lunch with me, and he gladly took up the offer and donned my Nike shirt. A simple blue shirt with Nike stitched across the chest.
We grabbed his ticket and we moved towards lunch. it was about noon, and jason hadn't had anything to eat yet. We got there and it was rather packed as we lined up for A&H. According to jason, he hasn't had a better fast food burger since A&H, and I wanted to try American Root Beer.
Jason was right, it wasn't bad at all. It didn't taste like reconstituted Rat tails which gets Big Bonus Points from me. And the Root beer wasn't quite what I was expecting. It had a slow taste, where you drink it and you don't get the full taste until after you swallow. It was a good taste, mind you.
And we wandered back to the convention and Jason told me about his love for making gaming terrain. He showed me some awesome terrain pieces that he likes, one of which he called a masterpiece was a guy who sells resin casts and the way they're designed is so that they can sit together nicely if you put them together the right way. It's a very cool setup.
We found Scotty again back at the Iron Arena, playing games with everyone. He's actually just gotten back (at 6am today) after playing 26 games over 20 hours. That's pretty crazy. But that's Scotty. You couldn't get more nuts than Peanut Butter, unless you're Scott.
Aaron we didn't find until we visited the Iron arena again later that night. I was a little worried that someone had gotten a rag and asked if it smelt like chloroform, and then left him in a bathtub of ice with stitches across his kidney. But no, he had probably been yammering away at people all day and eventually gotten back to play his Trollbloods at the Iron Arena with his new Warlock: Gunbjornn.
Jason and I took the nights opportunity however, to go out to the RAM. The Ram is a pub that has a lot of association with Gencon, especially since it's about a block away, and Privateer Press has a Large Influence on it. When we got there, their menu was almost completely themed to Warmachine and Hordes, and there were banners and swag to pick up as well. I grabbed a shirt for Humph, as I promised him one while I was there.
The dinner was pretty good. It was big though. It got a nice burger that involved peppers here and there, along with a side of Waffle Fries. They look like packeted ruffle chips with a grid of holes in them. It's different, but they tasted pretty good.
Their bourbon was a bit gross though. I first ordered a Bourbon and Ginger Ale, but that didn't work out right. Then I ordered a Bourbon and Lemonade, and that came out worse! I usually don't drink my bourbon with coke because it really bloats me and makes me feel ill after too long, but I guess I'll have to stick with that when I go there next.
But it's been a good night. After grabbing Jasons Luggage and models, we retired for the night and awaited the next morning.
The first was bad weather. Fair enough, you don't want to fly out during a bad storm which could potentially throw your plane back down to the ground with a sickening thud.
The second was a fire. A british airways plane had to make an emergency landing in Chicago because one of it's landing gears were ablaze.
The third was because Obama flew in.
Right. So he eventually got a flight in before the next day, which is good considering he hadn't been able to sleep. Oh what's this? Is he travelling light?
"No no, my bag hasn't arrived yet. They'll be delivering it tomorrow sometime."
Oh dear. That's not cool.
Well with Aaron not tired and myself feeling really tired, Jason took over aarons bed and we drifted off to sleep until the next morning. Jason slept in and planned on staying until his gear got delivered, while Aaron, Scott and I toddled off down to the convention.
Now I thought some of this was pre-done for me. I thought aaron said he'd already picked up my badge for the event. Apparently not. So after going between about 3-4 lines, I ended up at the disgustingly long line of Badge Registration. We were lucky that the event wasn't due to open until about 10am, so I wasn't going to be late into the convention.
after I picked up my badge, I wandered off to find call Scotty and see where he was, and I looked up to find Aaron and Scotty were already walking past. So I walked up to them and followed their direction. They wanted breakfast, so we wandered over to the food court of the Mall across the road.
We tried something safe: Subway. the surprise was that they don't have the same cheese as Australia. Instead of Cheddar, old English, Swiss and Mozarella... well I can't really remember the name of their cheeses except for Monterey Jack which is the one I put on my Bacon and egg.
It wasn't a bad sandwich.
So we moved back to the convention hall and we split up. Scotty went back to grab some things from the hotel, and Aaron did the same a little while later, which left me to map out the Hall itself. I wandered up and down those pathways looking at all of the interesting stuff they have on sale.
I found a gift for Sam (From the Gold Coast): A pair of goggles. She's been having trouble finding goggles for MONTHS so I thought I'd send her a nice pair as a gift. I had trouble finding the Blind Ferret booth for Kelvin's book he wanted, but after looking at the Program I've found out where it is so I'll be moseying over to there today (it's day 4 atm).
And the Privateer Booth. Ah, it's interesting. Their Gencon exclusives are a bunch of new character jacks for the main factions of Warmachine. I picked a Khador one up along with a bunch of other stuff including Pigs and a new battlebox. In total, i think I've spent about $450 on myself, and a Gunbjornn for someone else.
After grabbing my stuff, I found the gaming hall. It's fucking massive, for starters. There were about 128 tables available for the PP games area (I could be exaggerating a little) and there were 96 players for the tournament they had! That's about 10 hours of play over 5 rounds! JEEZ.
I was sick of carrying my stuff at this point. So I asked Scott if he wanted me to take his stuff back and I sauntered off back to the hotel. It's about a 10 minute walk, including crosswalks.
Upon arrival, the cleaning lady was preparing beds while Jason sad in the chair reading his book shirtless. Turns out he had hand washed his shirt because his luggage still hadn't turned up. I offered him a shirt and to come out to lunch with me, and he gladly took up the offer and donned my Nike shirt. A simple blue shirt with Nike stitched across the chest.
We grabbed his ticket and we moved towards lunch. it was about noon, and jason hadn't had anything to eat yet. We got there and it was rather packed as we lined up for A&H. According to jason, he hasn't had a better fast food burger since A&H, and I wanted to try American Root Beer.
Jason was right, it wasn't bad at all. It didn't taste like reconstituted Rat tails which gets Big Bonus Points from me. And the Root beer wasn't quite what I was expecting. It had a slow taste, where you drink it and you don't get the full taste until after you swallow. It was a good taste, mind you.
And we wandered back to the convention and Jason told me about his love for making gaming terrain. He showed me some awesome terrain pieces that he likes, one of which he called a masterpiece was a guy who sells resin casts and the way they're designed is so that they can sit together nicely if you put them together the right way. It's a very cool setup.
We found Scotty again back at the Iron Arena, playing games with everyone. He's actually just gotten back (at 6am today) after playing 26 games over 20 hours. That's pretty crazy. But that's Scotty. You couldn't get more nuts than Peanut Butter, unless you're Scott.
Aaron we didn't find until we visited the Iron arena again later that night. I was a little worried that someone had gotten a rag and asked if it smelt like chloroform, and then left him in a bathtub of ice with stitches across his kidney. But no, he had probably been yammering away at people all day and eventually gotten back to play his Trollbloods at the Iron Arena with his new Warlock: Gunbjornn.
Jason and I took the nights opportunity however, to go out to the RAM. The Ram is a pub that has a lot of association with Gencon, especially since it's about a block away, and Privateer Press has a Large Influence on it. When we got there, their menu was almost completely themed to Warmachine and Hordes, and there were banners and swag to pick up as well. I grabbed a shirt for Humph, as I promised him one while I was there.
The dinner was pretty good. It was big though. It got a nice burger that involved peppers here and there, along with a side of Waffle Fries. They look like packeted ruffle chips with a grid of holes in them. It's different, but they tasted pretty good.
Their bourbon was a bit gross though. I first ordered a Bourbon and Ginger Ale, but that didn't work out right. Then I ordered a Bourbon and Lemonade, and that came out worse! I usually don't drink my bourbon with coke because it really bloats me and makes me feel ill after too long, but I guess I'll have to stick with that when I go there next.
But it's been a good night. After grabbing Jasons Luggage and models, we retired for the night and awaited the next morning.
04 August 2010
Gen JenCon - Day 2
Well today isn't very interesting. I almost passed out after I finished the last post and scotty and aaron have been asleep all the way through.
Right now, it's raining and thundering outside and Aaron has gone to the shopping centre by himself to grab supplies. Scotty is still passed out, and I'm still sick.
We all slept for about a good 8 hours and we'll be trying for more later tonight. So far, Jason hasn't turned up because there were severe weather conditions over at Chicago, and apparently a plane was on fire as well so they evacuated the area and delayed flights a little more.
Jason should be alright though. There were 3 people injured and they were near the plane.
So fingers crossed Aaron doesn't get stabbed or blown in the wind, which shouldn't be possible since he's a 6'4" kiwi; and i hope jason gets his flight here to Indy sometime soon! And I hope scotty doesn't die in his sleep either. That wouldn't be nice.
I don't want to die in my sleep either. But i'm more worried about my wallet which is filled to the brim with 20's and just waiting to break right down the middle.
Right now, it's raining and thundering outside and Aaron has gone to the shopping centre by himself to grab supplies. Scotty is still passed out, and I'm still sick.
We all slept for about a good 8 hours and we'll be trying for more later tonight. So far, Jason hasn't turned up because there were severe weather conditions over at Chicago, and apparently a plane was on fire as well so they evacuated the area and delayed flights a little more.
Jason should be alright though. There were 3 people injured and they were near the plane.
So fingers crossed Aaron doesn't get stabbed or blown in the wind, which shouldn't be possible since he's a 6'4" kiwi; and i hope jason gets his flight here to Indy sometime soon! And I hope scotty doesn't die in his sleep either. That wouldn't be nice.
I don't want to die in my sleep either. But i'm more worried about my wallet which is filled to the brim with 20's and just waiting to break right down the middle.
GenJenCon - Day 1.5
it all began on a Tuesday afternoon. I'd lost my travel card. I didn't know WHERE it had gone. The only thing I was sure about was that I had put it somewhere safe. Aaron, who had turned up to help pass the time (And leech Starcraft 2 while he could) helped me sift through the various piles of paper and clothes in my room while I intermittently talked to Jenny.
I was sure I had them together! I know I hadn't taken it out of the envelope it was left in! I was positive! But where the fuck did I put it? Aaron took initiative and gave Travelex a call and we found I can easily get a new card and have the money transferred over. Righto, sounds easy enough. And Scotty and his mum had just arrived too.
We drive off, picking up Aaron's passport from home since he happened to forget it and leave it there, and driving off to the airport for our first Flight. To Sydney we flew, joking about how we're going to be so sick of each other by the end of this, whilst I just got more and more excited in my head about meeting Jenny at Detroit. Oh the shenanigans we will have.
Scott and Aaron had a slight... disagreement earlier today. Aaron didn't want to turn up until about a half hour before the actual flight because he hates waiting around Airports. Scott however had noticed something about checking 2 hours before flights so he planned to pick us up at approx 2. It was actually a good idea, because when we got there a handful of flights were delayed and we were given an earlier flight.
But we had a bit of trouble with the baggage. I have 2 pieces of baggage. The large bag which contains far too many shirts (this isn't including the couple from Girl Clumsy), not enough shorts, and a few books for Jenny from myself and John Birmingham. The second is my gaming case, filled with my figures i wanted to play with at GenCon along with a little manbag with Body wash, aftershave (I don't know why I brought it since I don't have my shears with me), a cologne, hair gel (another thing I really don't need since I don't have much hair), and a small tube of Zovirax in case I get a coldsore come up. Oh, and there's a block of chocolate in the side pocket of the gaming case too, another gift for Jenny from Girl Clumsy. And then my laptop was chucked in on top of that as well.
I wanted to take my gaming case on as onboard luggage. It would be good for the models because that way I can look after them myself, rather than letting them get manhandled by airport staff and getting broken. Well after taking out everything but the figures, it still weight 7.7 kgs, 700grams too heavy for legal reasons. Well fair enough, I wasn't going to put them in a plastic bag and carry them that way. May as well get a fragile ticket for them.
While we waited, I journeyed up to the Travelex counter at the Airport and asked about the situation and how to handle it.
"Okay. I'm not sure, so I'm going to have to look it up for you."
Fair enough. I give her some time to do some searches and maybe figure out the deal, but unfortunately the system wasn't working for her.
"Okay, we'll try and do it down in Sydney. Hopefully they can access the system too."
No problem. We fly down on the 2 hour flight, entertaining ourselves and getting excited about our Pilgrimage to the Holy gaming land.
We arrive at Sydney and make our way through the jumps and hoops to get to where we're going at the International gate. We were disappointed to find that my ticket was in a different spot to where Scott and Aaron were but we trucked on.
I stop off before customs and etc to check out the Travelex desk, maybe see what I can do about the account. Well, he got half of it done but unfortunately the call centre people were closed up so he was unable to get the money transferred, but he gave me a new card and a phone number to call when possible.
So I darted through customs and got more and more nervous. I wasn't sure about what I was doing so I made a few confusing mistakes here and there, and Aaron and Scott had already gone through so I couldn't ask them what I should do. So I got more and more nervous, without the help of the Decor of the friggin place, and when I got through I expected there to just be a bunch of gates and a few shops to serve waiting passengers.
Nooooo. The fuckers had to make the thing about 10kms long and make it all shops except for those dead end areas where they put in the gates. And to soggy me up with more piss, they had a Travelex counter DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM MY GATE.
Worst part was that I didn't know where Aaron and Scott were. I ended up running to the gate thinking I was going to be late, our boarding time being at about 7:30 which was when I got there. But no, we waited a bit longer and I eventually called up Scott to ask where they were.
"We're just outside customs".
GUH!
Moving on. The 14 hour flight to LAX was... Long. I was smack bang in the middle of a guy and a lady. The lady was frank from the start and didn't say a word except for the courteous "Sorry"and "Thank you". The other guy was nice enough though. I can't quite remember what his name was, but he was from Redcliffe and he was on his way to also see his girlfriend in Columbia. He had to go through LAX and Miami (That's probably wrong, but I'm sure it started with an M) before he got there.
He was going to Marry her on the 15th August. "Congratulations," I say. "How long have you two been together?"
"Oh about six months."
Now that's bravery. It's not something I would do (Sorry Jen) but I understand where he's coming from: He's getting on in years and he's just found that one click with this girl that truly makes him happy. Genuinely happy. So he's taking the plunge and going there to finally meet her for the first time and he's going to marry her.
I hope all goes well for him, his girl and her son and family.
Now all through this, I have a cold. I thought I'd better mention this, now that I'm reminded from my stuffy nose and the fact that the Air con in here is starting to make me freeze. (DON THE SONIC HOODIE!). This cold has persisted since the beginning of the week. I thought it might've been because I wasn't sleeping properly. For the better part of that week, I didn't get to bed until after 2am. The Buzz of excitement; the rush of productivity; the subconscious attempt at adjusting the body clock. All possible reasons, and all were probably happening at the same time. The worst part was that my neck was beginning to kill me. I had slept wrong a couple of nights in a row and slept on my neck wrong. The last two days at work thusly had poorish results while I was trying to survive the whomping headache I had broiling in my brain.
But cold and flu tablets containing paracetamol gave me my lucky break. I've taken them over the last couple of days and they have worked really well. However, I am out of them. So I am in desperate need to get some more, but nervousness and lack of easily attainable transport, I'm just going to have to suck it up.
Where were we. Oh yes, the trip to LAX. Well I spent most of that time watching movies. I did start to read "Hat full of sky" (Terry Pratchett) but I got distracted and started watching the monitors and going through the movies they had available. I think I got through a half dozen movies, was appalled a the idea of an Americanised Black Comedy version of "Death at a Funeral", and got halfway through Iron Man 2 again before passing out for a little.
It's fucking impossible to sleep in those chairs. Seriously, I just want to lay down. Their version of "Laying down" is 10 degrees. No, that is NOT comfortable. I know, i know, there's no room in the fucking sardine can you call a vehicle, but jeez.
But we were glad to get to LAX at just before 5pm their time. It gave us plenty of time to wait for our plane to Indianapolis at 10:50.
I had an idea on the way over to LAX. I was still pissed at myself for losing my Travelex Cards. It was reasonably stupid of me, considering I knew I put it in a safe spot so I would be able to find it, but I didn't know where I put it! But I thought back to where we searched and I wondered if I searched my game case fully.
the case has lots of pockets. One big one on the front, with two smaller ones; one on the side; a net pocket to store bottles of water; a zip up panel on the back which has 4 small pockets for cards and etc and a ring binder; and the main inside case which has a hidden slip pocket on one of the opening panels.
Guess what.
I found my Travelex Cards.
*Groan*
Well I pulled out $500 bucks, all of it dispensed in 20 dollar notes, and I made contact with Jenny before my phone officially died and tried to catch a few Z's. It's really hard to not decide that sleeping on the floor is a good idea. The problem being is that I'll get kicked every second person.
But now it's 9:41am and we're in Indianapolis at our hotel. Aaron and Scotty are having a Power nap until 12 and after I finish this I'll do the same. We picked up a few snacks, had a long overdue shower (We'd been flying for 30 hours), and now we have to figure out a way to get some super glue for our figures. Aaron and Scotty made out pretty well with their figures, but mine seemed to be mauled. In actual fact, they could've been a lot worse, but the fact remains that only a handful of shocktroopers had their halberds stay on, the majority of Demo Corps stayed together, and the bombardiers just fell apart. Which isn't too much of a hassle considering they're all pinned.
Last thing to really do after that is grab our Gencon Badges and wait for Waggles. I may just get some Super Glue from the PP Store tomorrow and put them back together on the night so I can play them over the rest of the weekend!
So short of the unfortunate circumstances with the figures, everything is on the up and up!
I was sure I had them together! I know I hadn't taken it out of the envelope it was left in! I was positive! But where the fuck did I put it? Aaron took initiative and gave Travelex a call and we found I can easily get a new card and have the money transferred over. Righto, sounds easy enough. And Scotty and his mum had just arrived too.
We drive off, picking up Aaron's passport from home since he happened to forget it and leave it there, and driving off to the airport for our first Flight. To Sydney we flew, joking about how we're going to be so sick of each other by the end of this, whilst I just got more and more excited in my head about meeting Jenny at Detroit. Oh the shenanigans we will have.
Scott and Aaron had a slight... disagreement earlier today. Aaron didn't want to turn up until about a half hour before the actual flight because he hates waiting around Airports. Scott however had noticed something about checking 2 hours before flights so he planned to pick us up at approx 2. It was actually a good idea, because when we got there a handful of flights were delayed and we were given an earlier flight.
But we had a bit of trouble with the baggage. I have 2 pieces of baggage. The large bag which contains far too many shirts (this isn't including the couple from Girl Clumsy), not enough shorts, and a few books for Jenny from myself and John Birmingham. The second is my gaming case, filled with my figures i wanted to play with at GenCon along with a little manbag with Body wash, aftershave (I don't know why I brought it since I don't have my shears with me), a cologne, hair gel (another thing I really don't need since I don't have much hair), and a small tube of Zovirax in case I get a coldsore come up. Oh, and there's a block of chocolate in the side pocket of the gaming case too, another gift for Jenny from Girl Clumsy. And then my laptop was chucked in on top of that as well.
I wanted to take my gaming case on as onboard luggage. It would be good for the models because that way I can look after them myself, rather than letting them get manhandled by airport staff and getting broken. Well after taking out everything but the figures, it still weight 7.7 kgs, 700grams too heavy for legal reasons. Well fair enough, I wasn't going to put them in a plastic bag and carry them that way. May as well get a fragile ticket for them.
While we waited, I journeyed up to the Travelex counter at the Airport and asked about the situation and how to handle it.
"Okay. I'm not sure, so I'm going to have to look it up for you."
Fair enough. I give her some time to do some searches and maybe figure out the deal, but unfortunately the system wasn't working for her.
"Okay, we'll try and do it down in Sydney. Hopefully they can access the system too."
No problem. We fly down on the 2 hour flight, entertaining ourselves and getting excited about our Pilgrimage to the Holy gaming land.
We arrive at Sydney and make our way through the jumps and hoops to get to where we're going at the International gate. We were disappointed to find that my ticket was in a different spot to where Scott and Aaron were but we trucked on.
I stop off before customs and etc to check out the Travelex desk, maybe see what I can do about the account. Well, he got half of it done but unfortunately the call centre people were closed up so he was unable to get the money transferred, but he gave me a new card and a phone number to call when possible.
So I darted through customs and got more and more nervous. I wasn't sure about what I was doing so I made a few confusing mistakes here and there, and Aaron and Scott had already gone through so I couldn't ask them what I should do. So I got more and more nervous, without the help of the Decor of the friggin place, and when I got through I expected there to just be a bunch of gates and a few shops to serve waiting passengers.
Nooooo. The fuckers had to make the thing about 10kms long and make it all shops except for those dead end areas where they put in the gates. And to soggy me up with more piss, they had a Travelex counter DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM MY GATE.
Worst part was that I didn't know where Aaron and Scott were. I ended up running to the gate thinking I was going to be late, our boarding time being at about 7:30 which was when I got there. But no, we waited a bit longer and I eventually called up Scott to ask where they were.
"We're just outside customs".
GUH!
Moving on. The 14 hour flight to LAX was... Long. I was smack bang in the middle of a guy and a lady. The lady was frank from the start and didn't say a word except for the courteous "Sorry"and "Thank you". The other guy was nice enough though. I can't quite remember what his name was, but he was from Redcliffe and he was on his way to also see his girlfriend in Columbia. He had to go through LAX and Miami (That's probably wrong, but I'm sure it started with an M) before he got there.
He was going to Marry her on the 15th August. "Congratulations," I say. "How long have you two been together?"
"Oh about six months."
Now that's bravery. It's not something I would do (Sorry Jen) but I understand where he's coming from: He's getting on in years and he's just found that one click with this girl that truly makes him happy. Genuinely happy. So he's taking the plunge and going there to finally meet her for the first time and he's going to marry her.
I hope all goes well for him, his girl and her son and family.
Now all through this, I have a cold. I thought I'd better mention this, now that I'm reminded from my stuffy nose and the fact that the Air con in here is starting to make me freeze. (DON THE SONIC HOODIE!). This cold has persisted since the beginning of the week. I thought it might've been because I wasn't sleeping properly. For the better part of that week, I didn't get to bed until after 2am. The Buzz of excitement; the rush of productivity; the subconscious attempt at adjusting the body clock. All possible reasons, and all were probably happening at the same time. The worst part was that my neck was beginning to kill me. I had slept wrong a couple of nights in a row and slept on my neck wrong. The last two days at work thusly had poorish results while I was trying to survive the whomping headache I had broiling in my brain.
But cold and flu tablets containing paracetamol gave me my lucky break. I've taken them over the last couple of days and they have worked really well. However, I am out of them. So I am in desperate need to get some more, but nervousness and lack of easily attainable transport, I'm just going to have to suck it up.
Where were we. Oh yes, the trip to LAX. Well I spent most of that time watching movies. I did start to read "Hat full of sky" (Terry Pratchett) but I got distracted and started watching the monitors and going through the movies they had available. I think I got through a half dozen movies, was appalled a the idea of an Americanised Black Comedy version of "Death at a Funeral", and got halfway through Iron Man 2 again before passing out for a little.
It's fucking impossible to sleep in those chairs. Seriously, I just want to lay down. Their version of "Laying down" is 10 degrees. No, that is NOT comfortable. I know, i know, there's no room in the fucking sardine can you call a vehicle, but jeez.
But we were glad to get to LAX at just before 5pm their time. It gave us plenty of time to wait for our plane to Indianapolis at 10:50.
I had an idea on the way over to LAX. I was still pissed at myself for losing my Travelex Cards. It was reasonably stupid of me, considering I knew I put it in a safe spot so I would be able to find it, but I didn't know where I put it! But I thought back to where we searched and I wondered if I searched my game case fully.
the case has lots of pockets. One big one on the front, with two smaller ones; one on the side; a net pocket to store bottles of water; a zip up panel on the back which has 4 small pockets for cards and etc and a ring binder; and the main inside case which has a hidden slip pocket on one of the opening panels.
Guess what.
I found my Travelex Cards.
*Groan*
Well I pulled out $500 bucks, all of it dispensed in 20 dollar notes, and I made contact with Jenny before my phone officially died and tried to catch a few Z's. It's really hard to not decide that sleeping on the floor is a good idea. The problem being is that I'll get kicked every second person.
But now it's 9:41am and we're in Indianapolis at our hotel. Aaron and Scotty are having a Power nap until 12 and after I finish this I'll do the same. We picked up a few snacks, had a long overdue shower (We'd been flying for 30 hours), and now we have to figure out a way to get some super glue for our figures. Aaron and Scotty made out pretty well with their figures, but mine seemed to be mauled. In actual fact, they could've been a lot worse, but the fact remains that only a handful of shocktroopers had their halberds stay on, the majority of Demo Corps stayed together, and the bombardiers just fell apart. Which isn't too much of a hassle considering they're all pinned.
Last thing to really do after that is grab our Gencon Badges and wait for Waggles. I may just get some Super Glue from the PP Store tomorrow and put them back together on the night so I can play them over the rest of the weekend!
So short of the unfortunate circumstances with the figures, everything is on the up and up!
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