PAX Eeast 2012

As I mentioned in another thread, I was recently at PAX East in Boston earlier this month. It was a lot of fun, though as conventions go I wouldn't rank it along side Comic Con in San Diego. Maybe because it was more specialized, or because a series of small problems got in the way of being able to fully enjoy it.

In hindsight, I wish I had spent more time at the various gaming areas, playing D&D or other tabletop RPGs, or in the free PC/Console gaming rooms, or trying out the several new/demo games in the Expo hall. The panels I managed to get to were mostly interesting, but nothing really blew my mind (aside from the Mike and Jerry PA panels, those were AWESOME). I also wish I hunted around for more swag, specifically the Minecraft replica pickaxe/sword.

On the Sunday morning Mike and Jerry were having a one hour autograph session, which we found out the minute it started. So naturally we were way back in the line, and the workers told us the 'soft' end of the line was well ahead of us. Still, we managed to get Mike and Jerry to sign our stuff. They wound up staying a full extra hour getting through the whole line, that's dedication to their fans. While we were in line I made a joke with my friend that we should have bought a giant D20 and asked Mike to sign the 20, and Jerry to sign the 1 (for those who have listened to the Penny Arcade + PVP D&D podcasts, they'll get the joke. For those who haven't listened to it GO LISTEN TO IT NOW IT IS BOTH AWESOME AND HILARIOUS). When we get up to get our picture taken with them my friend James steals my joke and says it to Jerry, He CLAIMS that he had a similar joke in mind already, and for anyone who listened to the podcast it would be a relatively easy joke to come up with. But seriously... what a jerk.

And really, that's all there was to the trip. Other than an ungodly amount of time spent on a bus to and from Boston from Toronto. Remember how in that other thread I mentioned that my friends are terrible planners? Yeah... taking a bus rather than flying is a good example of that. I know they wanted to save money, but they're inexperienced travellers who, afterwards, admitted that some things are worth spending a little extra money on, like a combined 3 hours of flights as opposed to a combined 31 hours on buses. >_>

You took the BUS?! Holy crap! I'm only a six hour drive from there, and I'll probably be flying when I finally go to that.

I saw a video of one of the Mike and Jerry panels (the Q&A), and it was pretty incredible. It's cool that they stayed to give everybody autographs. Those guys can be pretty classy when they're not busy making dick jokes

Get any cool pics?

Not really. There wasn't much that I REALLY wanted a picture of, except me with Mike and Jerry.

I managed to get to the Q&A panel, and it was awesome. The fact that the fans kept getting Mike to cry was hilarious.

I like that they started warning him. "I have a story, and you might cry"

Do you watch PATV?

Heh, after the first one they did start to warn him. I've watched everything but the PA TV series, the Blams are my favourite.

I really like the PA series. Especially the Fourth Panel episodes--it's cool to see the process behind how the strips are written. And it amazes me how Mike can offer a line, Jerry will change one word, and suddenly it's ten times funnier.