Gamehole Con - Schedule

I'll be in Madison the first weekend in November as a Guest of Honor at Gamehole Con. It looks like all my events are full, but you never know when people will drop out and you can just walk up to a game. You should also be able to find me just wandering around the show. Check out my schedule after the jump.

New York Comic Con 2015 - Classic Report

High light: Sharing the weekend with my mom. We've had a rough couple of years, but we spent  lot of time together at the show and just wandering New York.

Low light: Missing the one panel I wanted to attend because the subway entrance I wanted to take was closed.

Best experience: BBQ films held an event modeled on the blood rave from the opening sequence to Blade. I even brought out my Malkavian T-shirt out of retirement for one last epic LARP.

Worst experience: The only time I suffered a bad traffic jam was in Times Square. People, not cars, were jammed to a standstill on the sidewalk.

Best bargain (had to buy it, no freebies):  This was the best use of a ReedPop pro pass yet.

Best Freebie: The foam chainsaw hand promoting Ash Vs. Evil Dead.

Most welcome surprise: I don't know if it was the con, the good weather or what but I didn't run into any stereotypically rude New Yorkers. I met so many folks that were friendly, funny and awesome.

Most unwelcome surprise: My mom only made it out to one day of the show. She still wants to go-go-go, but she's also still recovering from two cancer diagnoses in two years.

Best costume: The 9 foot tall Hulkbuster Iron Man armor stoop head and shoulders above the rest. Sorry. (not sorry)

Most amusing costume: I'll let Troy McClure speak for himself:

Best costume where my picture didn't turn out: Two kids dressed up as Daniel-san and Johnny from The Karate Kid, with the mom dressed up as the referee from the karate tournament.

Coolest booth and why: The MegaBloks Star Trek booth had a Captain's Chair build out of  

Strangest moment: Watching a pair of fellow Midwesterners wander into a sketchy garage just to take a picture of the Lamborghini up on blocks inside.

Favorite item available in the Exhibit Hall: there was a booth selling cardboard replicas of water towers and billboards you could paint over for your desk. They brought in well-known graffiti artists to replicate their more famous works.

Purchases:
Sidekicked
The First Law of Mad Science
Ms. Marvel
Astro City
Scam
The Red Ten

Free Stuff:
Foam Chainsaw
Lanyard
Jessica Jones Photo

Couldn't Find It:
Neocomicon

Best Quote: "I don't remember you asking me if I wanted to go to the blood rave." -Mom

42 Ale House - September Schedule

It's been a busy time for me. I'm working a full-time corporate contract, freelancing as I am able and developing some new games with some cool people. On top of that, I'm doing some exciting things over the next few months. Let's see where I'll be in September.

Trivia Tuesday

The fine folks at 42 Ale House have hired me on to run their trivia program. Each evening focuses on a single nerdy subject, with the top two teams facing off in a tense showdown for trivia supremacy. This month's subjects are up on their events page.

Nerds at Heart

The long-running singles event strikes an anniversary this month. Play board games, including some fresh from Gen Con stuff, with other nerdy singles looking for a partner in crime

New To You Game Night

They are also encouraging people to come out and learn to play games. I'm running the RPG component of the events. This month will be a chance to make both a character and a world for a Dungeons and Dragons 5e game. 

Nerd Night Milwaukee

I'm one of three speakers for this event. I'm doing an overview of RPGs, plus there's an Ingress expert and someone talking about building playgrounds.

Classic Con Report - Gen Con 2015

High light: I met a lot of people that influenced my career choices at this show. Joe Dever, in particular, wrote the first fantasy books I ever read and he was fantastically charming and gracious. I'm going to be a dad next year and I can't wait to bust out the boxed set for the baby when he or she is old enough.

Low light: Not enough time. I feel like I missed seeing so many people at the show.

Best experience: Sunday night dinner at St. Elmo's continues to be a highlight of the con. That first bite of the Filet Mignon is like a vacation within a vacation.

Worst experience: Finding out some bad family health news on the way home. Nothing like crying in a Steak and Shake parking lot to kill off your big post-Gen Con buzz.

Best bargain (had to buy it, no freebies): 4 D6 Star Wars books I didn't have for $18.

Best Freebie: Gene Ha, the artist for the award-winning Top 40 comics series, handed out some sketches of audience members he did at the comics panels at the show. I was one of the lucky ones, which is the rough equivalent of a reknowned chef wandering by your table at dinner and asking if you want a free steak.

Most welcome surprise: Our usual Friday night room game didn;t go off, but I still had fun just hanging out and talking with folks I usually only see at cons.

Most unwelcome surprise: Despite having most of my time back to myself, I didn't really get a chance to play a lot of games until Sunday.

Best game: Flick Em Up is a Wild West dexterity game where you have a shootout in a little meeple town. It is painfully adorable and a blast to play a few drinks deep.

Most interesting game concept: Flick Em Up, a wild west shoot'em up meeple game, was a ton of fun throughout the con.

Sleeper game:  Yashima, a wuxia kung-fu deckbuilder, did just enough cool things in the demo to get me to buy it.

Coolest booth: The Flick 'Em Up booth had a Texas-sized version of the game to demo, complete with a duel area for quick illustrations of how the game worked.

Strangest moment: Watching my roommates hack the hotel TV so that we could watch Netflix as we wound down on a few nights.

Played: 
Monarch
Nefarious
Flick 'Em Up
Superstar Smackdown
Firefly RPG
Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn

Purchased:
Flick 'Em Up
Yashima
Seventh Hero
Star Wars books
Cthulhu Apocalypse
Mythos Expeditions
Lone Wolf Adventure Game
Ravenloft books
Street Legends expansion

Swag:
Leverage Companions
Sixth Gun RPG
Deadlands Kickstarter
Chill 3rd Ed
Feng Shui 2
Pathfinder map packs
Legendary Encounter organizer
Revelations of Mars
Ravenloft boxed set
Gene Ha sketch
Cypher System bag

Things to pick up after the con:
Mysterium
Urban Shadows
Serpent's Skull Adventure Path
Ashes Rise of the Phoenixborn

Milwaukee Record - Cosplay Rave

My good friends at 42 Lounge are hosting one of their big cosplay parties this weekend. I wrote up a short article calling back to rave culture in the 90's which was kind of a big deal around Milwaukee

Milwaukee Record - Renaissance Faire Interview

This year's Ren Faire preview article involves sitting down with the woman playing Queen Elizabeth and talking about her experiences as royalty.

Classic Con Report - Nexus Game Fair 2015

High light:  Walking through the con and just stopping and talking to people be they friends, fans or other pros.

Low light: Many of the seminars and panels were sparsely attended. Everyone was too busy playing games, I guess.

Best experience: The Milwaukee Company of Gamers bringing their truck full of games and letting me play games that I might take home at a later con.

Worst experience: Save Game and Atomic Robo were underattended. Ghostbusters Fate rocked, so maybe more Fate adaptations of popular media to get people on board with trying it out.

Best bargain (had to buy it, no freebies): Both the silent auction and the trade booth allowed me to get some good deals without spending money.

Best Freebie: My business dinner with Jason Hardy, the Shadowrun developer, about [REDACTED].

Most welcome surprise: Meeting fans of this very blog. Sometimes, writing can feel like you're just screaming into the darkness. It's nice to see I connect with people and that they care enough to seek me out.

Most unwelcome surprise: The scratch in my passenger door that one of the hotel guests left on Snubfighter.

Games played: 
Ghostbusters Fate
Feng Shui 2
Colt Express
Firefly RPG
Tales of the Arabian Nights
Eldritch Horror
Kaiju Incorporated

Coolest booth and why: The con shirt makers could customize your shirts at the show. I know have a shirt with my Twitter handle on it!

Strangest moment: Having a small but fierce following show up at my various events. You guys rock.

Favorite item available in the Exhibit Hall: Dojo, a card drafting kung fu battle game, is now on Kickstarter.

Stuff traded:
Pathfinder Card Game packs
Forbidden Lore Eldritch Lore expansion

Stuff got for free:
Guest of Honor experience
Nexus T-shirt
Nexus plastic cup

Stuff that was wanted that was unavailable:
I'd love to see more board game prototypes at the show.

Things to buy after Nexus:
Colt Express is likely going to punch, shoot and run its way into my game library.
Likely to pick up the expansions for Eldritch Horror, which I enjoyed much more than it's older sibling.

Best Quote:
"Acquire! Acquire! Acquire!"