Weekend Recap - Part 1 (PAX East 2010 - Day 1)

Time had finally come for the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), a semi-annual gaming festival. PAX started in 2004 and was previously held in the state of Washington. It was the first time being held in Boston, MA. The show catered toward gamers and tried to give equal attention to console gamers, computer gamers, and tabletop gamers. In other words, it was like nerd heaven.

I had pre-registered several months ago for the 3-day event. It was the first time attending any kind of conference so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew there would be a ton of nerds there. I know I’m a nerd but these people are NERDS! And where there are nerds, there was bound to be nerd “sweat”. Gross.

I talked a few friends into entering a 3D tournament for the new PC game, Battlefield: Bad Company 2. I was a little excited for that but I wasn’t sure how we would do against the competition. One of our guys had never even played the game before. Not the ideal situation but it was the best squad we could roll out.

I was excited to see some new technology and to try out some new video games. I wasn’t exactly thrilled though with all of the noise and the long lines for various panels. And then there was the tourney to look forward to. And then there was the nerd sweat. I felt so conflicted. To be honest, I wasn’t really looking forward to PAX because it also was the first time spending a night away from my wife since getting married.

After work on Friday, I drove home to drop off my car. It was long overdue for its routine maintenance. I had an appointment at the dealership the next morning and Tary volunteered to take care of that while I was away. After some hugs and kisses, Tary dropped me off at the commuter rail train station in Lowell. The train departed for Boston at around 6:50 PM. I missed Tary already.

Upon arriving in Boston, I took a quick peek at the subway maps to get my bearings and I hopped on the Green Line. I got off at the Hynes Convention Center stop and made my way up to the street level. I had no clue where I was going so I started walking (in the wrong direction). I asked a valet where the Hynes Convention Center was and he pointed me back to where I needed to go. In the distance, I could see my hotel so I was getting a little excited.

I checked into the hotel and dropped off my stuff. A few friends shared the room with me and since they came much earlier in the day, they already had dropped off their stuff. I headed toward the convention and gave my friends a call to see where to meet them. Unfortunately, everyone was at a Kotaku party at the Rattlesnake Bar. I really hate bars and the whole bar scene so I just walked around the hall by myself.

There were tons of people everywhere. I briskly walked through the 3 floors and took mental notes of where everything was. On the 3rd floor, there was the PC free play area where you could walk in and play on any of the 400+ computers. There was a sign-up area at one of the desks to get into the tourney. The other guys had already signed up so I waited in line to sign up. When I got to the computer, I started entering in my information when it prompted me for a team name and password. WHAT?! No one told me about this. I tried searching for “Team Rambo” and its derivative forms. Nothing…

I had to step out of line. I sent a text message to get the team name and password. I got an ambiguous reply so I waited in line again. When I got the computer again, I tried entering what I could make out from the text message. Fail. ARGH! The guy behind the desk suggested that I just manually search for the team name. That did the trick and I was able to finally find our team listed under the letter “T”.

It was almost 9 PM now and I feeling very grumpy…which always happens when I go this long without eating. I was tired. I was hungry. I was annoyed at the lack of communication which resulted in wasting more of my time. My friends were nowhere in sight. I refused to hop in a cab and join them at the bar. I didn’t care how much free food was there. At this point I just wanted food. Good thing the Hynes Convention Center is connected to the Prudential Mall. I left the hall and got some Chinese food at the food court. It’s kind of depressing that at a “nerd” conference, I’m the one who was eating alone. So far, the first hour and a half of PAX has been pretty crappy.

Thankfully, my friend A.D. called me to let me know he left the bar and was coming to meet up with me at the food court. He arrived with another friend Luis who was feeling pretty tipsy. We walked Luis back to his hotel room while A.D. and I returned to the expo. We spent some time in both the console and PC free play areas. I watched on as A.D. played some fighting games. We played a few shooting games together but I was a little disappointed that they didn’t have Battlefield: Bad Company 2 installed on the machines that we were on. I guess I was feeling a little bored because this is all the same kind of stuff that I can easily do at home.

The night started to get better when another friend (who also happened to share the hotel room with me), S.Y. came and met up with us. The three of us were pretty tired so we decided to go back to my hotel room. A.D. had his own hotel room but his “friends” abused his kindness and invited more friends to stay in their already crowded hotel room. By our count, there were 13 guys staying in his hotel room! He was obviously upset about that so I let him stay the night with us.

After we got back to the hotel room, our other roommates (G.Y. and L.D.) came back from the bar. We all just hung out and shared a bunch of laughs. The first night of PAX didn’t start off that well but with my friends around, it couldn’t have ended any better (unless of course Tary could magically appear and join us).