Keeping Score

The P to the A to the X-Po

I made it back alive from the PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) this weekend, I'm happy to report. Overall I'd say I had a pretty good time.

Arrived on Friday night, and went out drinking with my old high-school buddy Schmitty, but first I headed on down to the Meydenbauer Center to take a look around. Robert had mentioned that the doors would be open Friday night for the bands to set up and do sound-checks, so guest speakers could swing by and pick up their badges or whatnot that night.

Security was a bit lax. I asked if I could get my "Special Guest" badge, and the girl who seemed to be "headish" of security said "Sure, here you go!" and just gleefully handed me a Special Guest badge. That was it. No ID check, nothing. I shrugged and headed off to a beer dinner with my buddy, wondering if I should have him come back with me and get him a Special Guest badge, as well.

The convention itself was very well run, I have to admit. A lot of folks are griping about the long lines to get in, and long lines for events, and pretty much long lines in general. As it turns out they didn't expect as many people, and the place was packed to the gills. These, as they say, are the kind of problems you want to have when throwing an event.

I attended the State of the Industry panel, and I found it exceedingly entertaining. Both of the panels I was on went really well, and I had a great time speaking on them. We joked back and forth a bit, and tried to answer people's questions as best as we could.

I have to say, it's a bit humbling to realize that 500 people showed up to hear what you and four other guys have to say about the industry. So I had to take a picture or two for posterity.

This was about the middle third of the "Breaking Into the Industry" crowd after Porkfry got them all to "throw up some horns" as it were. We had to keep encouraging them as my phone was taking its sweet-ass time grabbing this lousy, blurry picture of them doing said horn throwing.

Also, just because I wanted to remember the experience (::sniff:: /wipe tear from eye), I grabbed a shot of Pork while Vlad was workin' the mic, yo.

And You Thought Paradigm Was Bad

Just sent this email at work:

Just FYI, I can’t get any work done ‘till my dongle works.

No, I don't work in the pr0n industry. Honest.

Got Baybay?

As is the custom with my people, I take a picture of my baby with the phone about once per week. Mainly because I love seeing her shining face looking back at me whenever I use my phone. The only pictures left on my phone are now baby pictures, spanning from the birth three months ago 'till this morning's. I swear, phones are the new wallet pictures.

Thoughts on the Olympics

1). Hey, Bermuda, we get it. You invented the shorts. You can stop wearing them in every single parade of nations ceremony. We're famous for jeans and t-shirts, and you don't see us using that as our national uniform every Olympiad.

2). Dear NBA: Please teach your "second string" players like Iverson and Duncan and Marbury how to shoot an outside 2pt. shot. And by "outside" I mean like from 3 feet away. Watching our guys get their asses handed to them only justifies that we've stopped playing Basketball in our country and now play Dunkball. Do you think we enjoy watching 2 and a half hours of guys who get paid millions of dollars losing to a country whose GNP isn't worth half as much as our team's annual salary?

3). Women shouldn't be allowed to announce events, evidently. I have yet to hear one who's not totally catty or just downright numb. Like the one in the gymnastics commentary:

Woman Announcer: (for the 80th time) "Ooooh, see that step? The judges could take off a tenth of a point for that if they wanted to."

Man Announcer: (so sarcastically you can hear his eyes rolling) "I think they want to."

4). Evidently there are only Swimming, Gymnastics, Basketball, and Track and Field at these Olympic games. Hey NBC, would it kill you to actually show a few different events? Like, the 10 minutes of table tennis was pretty interesting. However, after watching five hours of Men's Basketball and Gymnastics qualifying rounds, I'm beginning to wonder where you're coming up with the footage for handball. That actually looks like it's a pretty cool game. Thanks for showing exactly 3 seconds of it during your recap of what happened this weekend. I watched the games all weekend and didn't see one iota of handball or badmitton. I don't know about the rest of America, but I'm sick of watching 14 year olds on balance beams. Call me crazy.

5). Diving cameras are THE BOMB. I want one, even though I have no use for one.

6). Best. Pregame. Show. EVER.

7). Oh good, apparantly I missed Fencing. Glad to see I watched every waking hour of coverage on NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, and yes, even frickin' Telemundo this weekend so that I wouldn't possibly miss it.

What the Hell

I realize this makes this the Pettiest Blog in the World, but I need to vent.

If you're so cheap that you feel the need to steal three cans of C2 Coke out of a communal fridge at work, when not eight feet away there's not one but two (2) vending machines that dispense Coke products (diet and regular) for a fucking quarter, you have just qualified as the cheapest and laziest motherfucker on the planet.

Automotively Late

It's a new term, like Fashionably Late, only with Automotively, you can be an entire hour late and it's still evidently okay.

Hey, Midas, if I have a fucking 8am appointment, and I get there at 8am, that generally means that I was on time and expect you to do start work right then. So when you say you'll "get right to" my car, that usually means someone is going to start running out to the parking lot with my key immediately, not AN HOUR AND TEN MINUTES LATER.

Just a tip.

Can't Stop, Can't Stop the Shop

I've got the Photoshop sickness. I saw an old DODGE logo on the back of a Dodge pickup tailgate last night, and it struck me that it would be painfully easy to Photoshop the letters around to make it say DOOCE, which has become one of my favorite stops for baby hillarity and hijinx. It helps that her baby is only a couple of months older than mine (and both our kids are girls), so I view Dooce.com as a window to the future insofar as my Riley is concerned.

Anyway, Here's the thing with the doocing:

Baby Zabrak

Was bored (again) at work last week and quickly whipped this one up. For the uninitiated, a Zabrak is the race Darth Maul was in Ep 1. Nothing to see here, folks, move along.

Pshop Madness

Didn't have a lot to do at work today, so I figured I'd finish a joke poster I've had running through my head ever since my buddy Jack ranted about how stupid the new Green Lantern movie is going to be. Jack, this one's for you:

/rolleyes

Found this site through Davezilla today, and stumbled up on this amazing revelation:

If you add up the name 'George Bush' in Hebrew letters it comes out:

* G = 3 (gimel)
* e = 5 (heh)
* o = 70 (ayin)
* r = 200 (resh)
* g = 3 (gimel)
* e = 5 (heh)
* B = 2 (beth)
* u = 70 (ayin)
* s = 300 (shin)
* h = 8 (cheth)
* total = 666 (Antichrist)

I would challenge anyone to find another powerful world leader, either now or in the past, whose name adds up to 666 in Hebrew.

Wow, he's got us there. This is some incredibly powerful damning evidence. I mean, I can't think of anyone who was another powerful world leader, in the past, whose name might also...wait, wait...now that I think of it, maybe...

GEORGE BUSH (SR.)

I swear, debunking crazy people is so easy that it's not even really all that fun.