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SAX, bag stuffing fun
About a week before PAX is SAX. SAX is a day of bag stuffing, pizzas, introductions and hilarity.
This year the Enforcers banded together in production lines to stuff flyers, tshirts, buttons and other junk into over 20,000 swag bags to be handed out to attendees at the Expo. The stuffing started at 9am and didn’t finish until about 7pm, with only a small break in the middle which was staggered to allow people to grab some pizza.
While monotonous the activity was great fun and once your brain had fallen into a pattern of grab, stuff, pass it was easy to chat with those around you. Meeting so many new people all striving for a common goal was a great way to get to know the people I would be working with pretty much non stop for a week at the convention.
Next time you grab greedily at the bags handed to you at your next convention give a thought to the many hands that went into making sure you got all your stupid vouchers!
PAX 2009
I have been following the development of Penny Arcade Expo for many years. Created by Mike and Jerry from the webcomic Penny Arcade it is a convention by gamers, for gamers. This years convention, held between the 4th and 6th of September was attended by over 60,000 people making it their biggest yet.
Pretty much this whole adventure has been leading up to PAX. I mentioned it in the About the Odyssey section right at the start of the trip and have been excited about it since. I bought my pass well in advance, even before they were officially on sale and spent many hours reading and re-reading my ticket receipt, counting the days until I would be in Seattle and at the con.
I worked as an Enforcer (more on this later) at the Expo which gave me a great behind the scenes look at the whole convention from setup until tear down. I have never worked a more rewarding and exciting job. My main role was to be in Info Booth, helping attendees, VIPs and assorted other people who need help with what ever I could offer. We managed Lost and Found, handled checking in other Enforcers, gave advice where ever appropriate and generally looked after the welfare of the attendees.
I didn’t really see much of the convention per-se. I was working most of the time out of choice because I enjoyed it so much. I did wander about the convention a few times though talking to people and checking out new games. Brutal Legend looks great, as does Dantes Inferno, Diablo III and Star Craft II. I had a go on the PSPGo which was surprisingly light and looked at the new PS3 Slim, which is pretty much the same “size” as the PS3 Phat, just thinner. I helped Tim Schafer find his way to his booth, talked to people from Microsoft and Nintendo and oogled the gorgeous cosplayers that dotted the Expo Hall. I didn’t get a chance to check out any of the Panels, but I did say hello to Mike and Jerry, the former who I got a photo with at the after party. Jerry had a baby on the last day of PAX so there was no chance of seeing him at the after party. I really enjoyed the whole expo. The vibe that resonates through the whole place, emanating from attendees, exhibitors, speakers and staff alike is one of kinship and fun. Never have a I felt so at home at an event.
One of the funniest moments I experienced while in our little Info Booth bunker was being approached by an older lady who was trying to get in touch with her over excited 16 year old. The young man was supposed to contact his mother at 2pm but had been too busy / couldn’t be stuffed doing so and she was worried and came and saw us around 7pm. Unfortunately we explained to her, we had no way paging the centre, so she would just have to keep trying on his phone. As she turned away accepting her fate of waiting her phone rang and, answering it in front of us, she told us it was her son and proceeded to berate him down the phone. The first words out of her mouth were “YOU ARE SOOOO GROUNDED”. The whole booth started rolling around laughing and I grabbed a few sheets of paper and asked the lady to get him to come to the booth. This was the result when he walked around the corner. I have never seen a kid turn so red. Good times, good times.
Setup and tear down were real eye openers and in a moment of inspired genius while tearing apart left over swag bags we came up with the idea to collect up the LOTR:Online games and create a domino design. 3 hours and 1351 DVD cases later we came up with this.
Probably the best thing I take away from PAX is the great feeling of satisfaction I received in being part of something so great and all the friends I made along the way. I feel I have been truly accepted into “The Black” and I will be trying my damnedest to be back to help in 2010.
Also: Giant Connect Four FTW.
Seattle
People look at me strange sometimes when I say I love the states, but damn it: it’s true. I have had nothing but good experiences here. The people are lovely, and everyone that I have met from the states, save a few obnoxious hangover exacerbating types, have been great, honest, confident and friendly. So it was nice to step off the boat from Victoria to be greeted by Seattle on a warm October afternoon.
Seattle, home of Grunge music, dot com darlings Amazon, Boeing and other cool businesses, is a beautiful city. Teeming with life and coffee shops the city stretches out from the west coast, up and over it’s many hills. I am staying in Capital Hill, a pretty cool district with some interesting characters and great nightlife.
I haven’t done all that much exploring as yet, haven’t even checked out the Space Needle, but I plan to remedy this after Penny Arcade Expo is all done. I did get a moment to wander around downtown though, where I met some locals in a bar who graciously offered to take me bar hopping around the town. As it was midday this was great as I got to see and take note of some cool bars to check out later. I also had a bit of a gander at the famous Pike Place Markets, but I wasn’t in the mood to deal with crowds so I just stuck my head in for a bit of a sticky beak.
I got to go to “The Central” on my impromptu little tour. This bar is pretty famous for having rock 365 nights of the year and has played host to some of the greatest bands ever when they were just starting out. They also have some pretty awesome graffiti in the toilets. “The New Orleans” on the other hand had the creepiest graffiti in theirs, with thousands of little faces staring you down while trying to do a slash. Damn weird.
I am liking Seattle. I can’t wait to see more of the town.
I Heart NY
Sitting on my AMTrack train at Penn Station at 7.15 in the morning I felt an immense sense of melancholy as my mind rolled through the events of the last 8 days in New York. The city has seduced me, taken my soul while I was off guard and sliced off a piece. With each blast of the train’s horn it seemed to spread that piece over the state, echoing between the buildings, down alleys, through the subway, bars, restaurants and parks. I feel like I have left something important in New York and I need to go back and find it. A yearning, like that for a lost love boils in my chest. I can still hear that horn, signaling not only my departure from the city but my arrival.
One part of me wants to recount every beautiful and amazing waking moment that I spent in New York. Wants to share my experience and shake any one willing to listen until they open their eyes and see what I have seen. But then I think that doing so will dilute this warm elixir of NYC I have bottled in me. It is mine and I am not willing to share it. It feels selfish. I guess it is something you’ll just have to experience for yourself.
New York, New York
So I’ve been in the States for around 3 days now. Arriving in JFK airport I spent around a hour trying to find an Internet Cafe to print out my bus pass so I could leave the terminal. I didn’t really feel like I was in NYC until our bus hit the Van Wyck. Seeing that sign made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. As we crested a hill the Manhattan Skyline appeared and I went all gooey.
In the short amount of time I have been here so far I’ve seen heaps of Manhattan, I’ve caught the Statten Island Ferry, visited cool bars, watched Hip Hop Open Mike till 4am, had an awesome burger in downtown, seen the WTC site, been to the Chrysler, Empire State and Rockerfeller buildings, jumped in Grand Central Station and wandered the Natural History Museum. Best of all though is seeing Tom’s Restaraunt, the diner from Seinfeld. Major life goal completed with one short subway ride.
I’ll be heading into Central Park today for a bit of a walk. I still have so much to see but I know one thing for sure. New York is my kind of place.