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The Bonuses Of Proper Dice Maintenance
May 14, 2004
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Hey folks... here be the rant. Apologies for lack of poetic-ness therein, as I am mightily tired from the E3, and I'm going to be heading back today as well, and then? Pictures posted on Tuesday! And I love you all. Hee.
Rundown of yesterday's E3:
- Adam (remember, nice guy from Real Life whom I met at ZotCon on Sunday?) and I head out around 9:45 AM or so, get food, start our journey, curse at traffic, find parking ($10, yikes), get checked in. Do a little dance and freak out in our fanboy/girl-ness. Enter what was apparently the West Hall or something at about 11:35.
- we wander around all "oooooo" for like and hour-and-a-half hour while Adam keeps trying to call Greg (the man behind Real Life).
- we get in line for the Penny Arcade meet n' greet. Line is approximately ten THOUSAND MILES LONG. We'd have waited, but all of a sudden Greg calls and Adam rushes off to find a place to talk. This is difficult because we're right by the "Advent Rising" feature, which has its speakers turned up high enough to blow the paint off of a car.
- Adam and I abandon the line to go hang with Greg & Lizzie and the crew (many people, many names, all of you were completely awesome, I'm sorry I don't recall everyone's names and I wish we had more time to hang out because you were all very cool). While there I run into the two really nifty guys from Interplay who always used to come to my store, and we BS for a bit - Interplay goin' through some troubled waters, and I do hope muchly that everything turns out okay - they're both awesome guys, and it was good to see them again. Made me miss the store - not as it IS, but as it WAS. ::takes off hat in remembrance:: Anyhow.
- The crew and I head off to Denny's for foodstuffs (because convention food is expensive and SUXX0R5) (oh, and on the way out the door I ran into Angus, who spontaneously got to go to the E3 because he's in the nebulous "press" arena, the lucky bloke, and whom I hope had a lot of fun). I play "quarters" with Greg while waiting for our food - a game wherein one pushes a quarter back and forth across the table while trying to get it as close to the other side without pushing it over - and at the beginning, due to my tired, shellshocked state and my lack of caffeine, I apparently keep putting my hand over the quarter as he pokes it across the table at me. Lizzie points this out and I feel like a horse's ass. I get my Coke, drain the sweet caffeine, and soon stop being such a dork. Greg and I both eat various sugar-based additives. Ninjas are brought up. Good times. I learn that Denny's nachos aren't bad, except for the unyielding half-container of solid sour cream they plop on the top - YIKES.
- we return to the E3 and Adam & I bid farewell to Greg & friends. I run into, of all people, Matt Kuzma (the charming silver-haired gentleman whom I met courtesy Lem "Hot Soup" Pew, and who is featured prominently as one of the great continuers of the proud tradition of the brickshot)! I was just standing about and he comes along and recognizes me, and happiness ensues. Turns out he's the co-founder of a gaming company known as Arete Studios! Woo! ::celebrates:: I wish him all the best and then some: he's a kickass fellow, and I know he's going to do great. ::smile::
- realize that despite the fact that Greg Dean is/was nearby, all encounters of people recognizing someone in our group was folks for ME. Chuckle mildly at the irony of this and begin to - deep inside - feel a bit like a rock star. Yay.
- Adam & I go back to the South Hall and look about, including a short stint of me sitting on his shoulders to try and take pictures of Vin Diesel (who was there for his company, Tigon Games), which didn't end up very well because the cloud was thick, and Mr. Diesel is quite animated and tough to get a good shot of. I made a couple attempts before security told us to stop it (quite politely, however, and with not a single threat of violence!), and although all attempts were fairly blurry, I'll post 'em on Tuesday anyway. I have to say that no matter what you might think of his movies, Vin Diesel seems like a really cool guy: I saw him BSing energetically with fans, giving autographs and enthusiastic high-fives. The guy is a total gamer, too: I'm sure he was completely stoked to be at the E3 there on many levels. Anyhow.
- Adam & I continue to wander through the South Hall, taking in the sights. This is including the Microsoft Area (which stretches, as Tycho once said, somewhere from Hell to Breakfast) - where we talked for a while with both one of the producers for the Fight Club game and one of the testers (working with Obsidian Games, which was put together by many of the folks from the former Black Isle Studios) for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, both of whom were seven shades of Completely Nice and the latter of whom actually got my website address (so if he's reading this, woo! ::waves::). Then we headed over to Activision and such and other locations and actually got a big run-down on El Geniuso Grande Peter Molyneux's new baby - The Movies - from one of the producers. The game looks nothing short of completely fucking amazing, and a lot of the stuff she showed us was utter distilled coolness, and we deeply appreciated her time - seriously it was like TEN MINUTES she was showcasing all the cool stuff the game could do - and I felt very badly that I could only catch about 2/3 of what she was saying due to some very loud music nearby. Was very cool, though.
- 6 PM. No more swag available and demos closing down, Adam and I stagger out the door, exhausted, to battle LA traffic. And a Good Time Was Had By All.
YIKES. That's a bit of a run-down, eh? Here's to today being even niftier! ::grin::
Anyhow. Must get to sleep soonness. Be well, my peeps. More on Tuesday - as always!
The Show Must Go On,
Annie "Blue" C
I know I'm not perfect but I can smile
- Dido
"I'm No Angel"
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