Saturday, June 05, 2010

| LE

Yeah Ellison is a big shareholder. The other big one is Michael Milken, the junk bond king. A friend of mine had to demo a game for him, sounds like that was a pretty surreal experience.

Friday, June 04, 2010

| "LE" POWNS URLIFE

Congrats on the jorb. Well technically, Larry ellison owns about 54% of Leapfrog, so essentially you are Powned by the man - and inadvertantly you also work for Oracle. There's probably some brainwashing scheme to zombify the 3-1o year old categories. Let me know when you get to the "Top Secret" clearance when you "produce" the LE coolaid ... er or the educational toyz as they call it.

Rude - I used to go to Shoreline Amphitheatre near San Mateo (close to the Khan) for comedic stuff - it's not always comedy lineups, Shoreline is more of a concert hall. It was only 25 bucks or something, purty cheap compared to lakerz tickets for hours of entertainment.

Thursday, June 03, 2010

| CDN4LIFE

Dude, congrats on the producer job! That's fuckin' fantastic! :)

That chili dog looks hella epic and gross/yum (i bet it was all yum.) Don't die.

I wish you guys lived in Los Angeles still (those that moved.) I've gotten into going to this theater in LA for comedy. It's cheap as fuck and it's kinda big comics. $5 bucks and you bring in your own booze, it's unreal. This weekend I'm seeing Aziz Ansari & friends - he's hosting the MTV Awards this year so it's him and the writers trying out bits before the show. $5 bucks!? And he's a funny dude.
UCB

Last thing, buying MP3s from Amazon is really good. They use their own little download program but after it downloads each song, it automatically loads it into your iTunes. It's rad. And they've always got awesome music sales and last night I downloaded like 10 different "sampler" mp3/albums on the site for all these different labels. Tons of free music, sweet.

Enron's pics are so good! I look so horrible! Fun :)

| Random Stuff

First of all, here's my lunch from Tuesday. I believe this makes me eligible for the Vice-Presidency of Chili Dog Nation:



Let me put this in context because the picture doesn't do it justice. This is a one-half pound hot dog (approx. 1' long) sliced in half, smothered in chili and enclosed in a lightly buttered bun served with a half pound of fries, from Burgermeister. I wish there were two of them, but this is cool.

Here's what else is on my mind-grapes:

1. Warhammer Invasion: I've bought the first five expansions. I am not buying the elf expansion because elves are stupid. Aeryk, I accept your challenge to Find the Fun. I'm going to see if the most demoralized of my team members is interested in playing the game at lunch.
2. Rogue Trader: Was hella fun. The world and feel are great. I am going to convert it to Savage Worlds, though, because who needs all that complexity? As long as I convert over the flavor of the psychic powers and use those tables and the crit charts, I don't think anything else is lost in translation. Stay tuned 'cause this is getting run online....
3. Job: I have a new one! New job, same company, starting the day of my layoff, in a role I'm much more excited about (producer). It pays about 10% more with 50% less responsibility and 75% less bullshit. I'm looking forward to getting out of QA, at least temporarily until the company gets permanently closed down and I'm laid off again.

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

You have to see this. Watch the drummer.

| Is there anything you can't do with Legos?

| Photos ex oblivio quod vestri matris

Ita stuprum est tabellae pro totus video vidi visum... Photo evidence.

As usual, the PW is "What Batman punches the Joker into... Two words, no spaces, no caps". For those of you who aren't hip to the clue, just email me to be let in on the secret.

D>M>
Ordered a couple of surprising (nautical-related) hats right now for the house boat adventure. They're dirt cheap but I want to make sure they're decent. Got 2 captains hats and 2 popeye-esque hats. I can just picture buffed out Zizkin and Tongers wearing nothing but sailor caps, hahaha. This is gonna be good.

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

| nah... i think what you guys are REALLY saying

is that you'd like an extreme man-on-man con in the rough wilderness. Like brokeback mountain. Except theres no cowboys.
eXtreme edition Man-Con entails playing games while biking and pouring copious amounts of Naya on our foreheads as we are "drinking" water.

Some sort of alternate Man-Con could be fun. I am game for that perhaps. Perhaps to make the location central to everyone, we can have Man-Con, Coalinga Junction. About halfway between LA/SF. Sweet accommodations for sure.

jA-eL, sorry you didn't make it. Your "insomnia" probably got you more sleep than we got at Boobla Khan. Hopefully you will make it next year.

The Regency Club was pretty descent. I was a little apprehensive at first based on the vague on-line description, but in the future, if the rate differential holds, we should keep this as an option.

D>M>

| ManCon III: Xtreme Gaming Conditions Camping

Sounds intriguing.

And by extreme gaming conditions I mean no hotel toilet, not camping in Death Valley.
Glad you're ok Jael! We were sorta under the impression that you were "on your way" and that you maybe had even caught a bus. Crazy!

Yeah, the regency club bonus was totally worth it and should be included every time. Enron owes us a collective hundred bucks or so, so he can use it for that next year.

One of the best cons, hands down. BUT, all the awesome gaming also means not enough time to catch up with everyone which sucked too. Man Con 3: On a Boat should really happen. Or even Man Con X-Treme: Camping Edition.

| Case of Severe Con Narcolepsy

Aaron - Sorry man, before the Kon, I went with my family to Vegas. We left on a tuesday and on Friday I planned to fly out to Oakland and attend the Con. So said were the plans. On Tuesday, having driven 6 hours on the road, then I got a request for a phone interview, and so I spent the remaing day prepping, - didn't get it - and spent the next 2 nights with severe insomnia -no correlation- just a peculiar onset. So by the time Friday rolled around, I just didn't feel I had the strength to fly back to Oakland, and spend the next 2 sleepless but funfilled nights at the Khan without precious slumber! Sleep Sanity > precious Urine.

On Sunday when I felt much better after a night of rest in my bed at home and I really wanted to be at the Khan. (maybe it was just the foreign hotel environment, although I usually adjust to hotels pretty well, on occassion, I do get these insomnia attacks) -

Nice photos and spiffy haircuts-do's! For a minute there I thought it was 1996. The khan is the grail of youth, forever frozen during the 3 days of gaming, fun and comradery. Although I'm never gonna put my finger in the finger shocker game again - less it gets defungafied! =D
The rooms look classy, with a full sized mirror, but it looked a little cramped imho.

There's always next year I guess =/ or Man Con III.

| Great Time

Another good con has come and gone and I too am feeling the physical after effects - for some reason my knee is feeling pain in a way it never has before, my shoulders ache, I feel bloated, and I still am in sort of a haze, but it's all good, yo. Some notes:

- I have started obsessing over Horus Heresy and sad that I could not complete my game with Enron, I really really want to play that game again and see just how different the first scenario would play out - it was already looking totally different from the learning game I had played earlier in the day.

- Leaping lemmings was fun, better with more people, with probably a sweet spot of 4 players. Although the overlooked scatter rule would prolly change the 3 player game significantly too. I like it.

- Wizard was fantastic again. Great game played in Scalini's.

- I like the Rouge Trader world, good times! The Rouge must flow!

- Being able to sell off parts of my old gaming life to pay for my new Kubla experiences and game purchases is awesome. I think I will probably have another fairly strong selloff next year, but might have hit my critical mass for worthwhile games after that. It's cool coming home from Kubla with more money in my pocket than I left with.

- Despite the amount of beer and gin consumed all weekend, I never really felt I was buzzed. Maybe during the flea bag market, but other than that, I mostly felt bloated and tired. While eating some BBQ on Monday, Leslie and I had a gin and tonic and I felt buzzed after 1/3 of my drink was gone, go figure.

- If everyone was okay with paying their part and it didn't break the bank, I think we should get the Regency Room option every year. I loved the free coffee and I certainly replaced paying for some meals with eating food up there, and it wasn't all that bad.

- I <3 Kubla but always feels like it's too short to catch up with everyone I don't get to see more than once a year.

- So, should we start scheduling and planning an official Man Con III somewhere more accessible to all of the Action Team in the future? My vote is yes.

Monday, May 31, 2010

| corn dog nation

how could you forget that enron
Here's some pics from the con:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/highend/sets/72157624178933292/

Awesome con, one of my favorites. Pretty much non-stop gaming and/or eating/drinking. Wish I hadn't treated my body so horribly, but other than that, had a blast with everyone. Thanks for all the great games.

| Con wrap up

Well, thanks a lot guys. I had a great time this weekend. Afterward I came home and crashed for several hours. So little sleep, so much booze and fun.

Game count: Approx. 42
Beers consumed (12 oz portions): 120
Gin consumed: est. 16 shots (~700ml)
Whiskey consumed: est. 4 shots (~175mL)
Photos taken by eNron (post chimping, pre-selection): 460 (est. 100 final images)
Room total costs (post-tip): $1,384.11 (final estimation was $1,433.60)
Missing confirmed Actionteam members: 1
Missed flights: 1
Text messages transceived by eNron's phone during the con: 95
Phrases and Quotes:
"Sorted assorted sordid juices" -M. Byke
"This beers is heavy, like dark matter beer" -eLzar
"Once you get a taste of nuts..." -DaveDefeat
"Tittyfury.com" -Unknown
"Jon the John" -eNron
"Precious urine" -jr0n, the man who placed the toilet in the bathtub
"Eric is in his Chester van" -Unknown
"We went through over 200 pounds of chicken strips yesterday" -Hotel food service station staff

jr0n, if you want, I can help you out with gaming rig suggestions. Give me a holler if you are interested.

jA-eL, What happened?

D>M>
Another good time, fellas. Definitely the most drunken Kubla Con ever....

I feel so much better getting that crap I sold out of my life! Yeah, the back room is still horrible, but slow, slow progress is being made.

I'm looking into Open RPG. Trying to get it installed and working -- I want to try playing some more tabletop in general and this seems like a good way to do it.

Anyway know what the specs/price are for a decent gaming rig these days? I'm considering picking one up for games if I get offered this job but I don't even know where to start. The backup plan if the job offer doesn't come through is go get my Dreamcast out of storage and play Tony Hawk 2 all day for a few months.