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Okay, I'm dividing the GenCon posting up into two posts. You are looking at the general post. The post about the games is here.
Warning: there will be spoilers in the game section. Most of them probably won't matter to you, because most of these games don't run the same from year to year, but I believe the Dragonquest and 7th Sea games may be the exception, and for all I know the groups could plan to run the same scenarios at other cons later this year even if there will be new ones by Gencon Indy next year. At any rate, I'm using cut-tags per game on it; you can go to the day of that post to access the view of it without the spoilers.
Enough about that. This is the general section, no game specifics at all. The trip went pretty smoothly, all in all.
We got to the airport Wednesday morning, arriving earlier than we'd intended. (Largely because it took less time to get ready, and less time to drive, than estimated.) This turned out to be a good thing. I've travelled a number of times since security was tightened, but apparently it's gotten even more fun. At 6:00 am Pacific, the line into security (which used to come all the way back to the passage to the ticket counters on bad days) went right past the passage to ticket counters and into the Oregon Market area, maybe halfway down that. Perhaps three times longer than the longest I have ever seen it before. And this was at 6 on a Wednesday - not, you know, a Monday or a Saturday or something....
The security personnel said that is normal now. They moved it along pretty quickly - it took us only a half hour to get through - but wow. They've upped things a little and now ask everyone to remove their shoes and belt (which was also requested of us at the Indy airport on the way home, so I assume it's maybe standard). I'm in the habit of removing my shoes anyway (since my old ones had metal supports in them and always set the thing off) and don't wear belts, but it was just a "blink, blink" moment. Some people were so, so upset at having to de-shoe. You'd think they'd been asked to strip to their underthings....
My backpack went through twice but didn't need to be hand-searched (I had the camera in it); Scott was in another line and said the only thing that happened to him was the security personnel complimented him on his beard. :) The flights were pleasant, very unremarkable, connections made easily; the Denver airport is a nice place to make connections, at least if you're all on one concourse (having never needed to leave the one concourse, I have no idea how nuisancy the trains or whatever are).
The hotel we stayed at - the Omni Severin - was quite nice. It was an older hotel, but elegant and kept up. One of the four elevators (one of two on "our" side) was out of service when we arrived; by the time we left at the end of the weekend, it was working, but we got in the habit of using the other side as it was generally faster. They botched our room key and it didn't open the room, but security let us in and rekeyed it and that was the end of that problem (total time about 5 minutes) so that's hardly upsetting. It was just a hotel room, but it was a comfortable, clean hotel room in a nice enough hotel that was near the convention center; that was plenty good. It was right next to Hooters, and the room we were in, the Windows faced the Hooters sign, which lit up in red neon at night. I tried to get pictures of it, but it was boring during the day and impossible to photograph without glare and blur at night. Scott and I found it quite humorous.
We walked over to the convention center via the skywalk to get a feel for it, and came to the conclusion not to use it again. It was rather round-about and parts of it wandered through areas of parking garages, not enclosed; it looked unfinished and felt a bit nervewracking. I'd originally thought I would feel more secure with the skywalk when I was leaving after one of my 1:30 games, but the thought of a parking garage at that hour was much worse than street level. We walked back to the hotel at street level and it was well-populated and clean; I never went on the skywalk again all weekend, although I would have if it had decided to rain when I wanted to be going back and forth.
The lines were a bit ugly. Wednesday night, the lines for badge registration and event registration were both huuuuuuuge, stretching out of the building. The line for Will Call (where Scott and I needed to arrive) was itsy-bitsy-tiny. Finding it, however, was a bitch and a half, as one of the other lines (Event Registration, I believe) went right across the front of it. Once we figured out that we just had to get through that line, we were fine: I walked up to Will Call and was immediately asked for my id so they could get my stuff. We were in and out in about 5 minutes from the point of figuring out where Will Call was. (One of my comments on the survey was a suggestion that the signs should be higher next year, so us short folks can see them when there is a line in front of them!)
Then we walked around Indy for a while, wandering basically. It was a nice walk. We sat in a park opposite the convention center for a bit also and, on the way up and back, Scott was most patient about stopping as I hauled out the camera. I haven't checked yet to see which of those photos are decent at a real size, though. I know I got way more photos of places in the city than I did of the con, in the end.... That counts Thursday morning. Since I didn't have any games on Thursday until 12:30, and the dealer's hall didn't open until 10, I went for a walk up to the Scottish Rite cathedral. If I'd had time to tour it, I might have admired it more, but it did keep me walking and there were some lovely sites along the way. It was probably good for me. I also found monument circle, which would have made a lovely navigational landmark if I had (but I didn't) made any more walks about the city later on in the weekend.
Anyway, two of Scott's events had been cancelled, but none of mine. The on-site book's map sucked: it was too small. The big boards with maps rocked, as they were easily usable - but you had to walk to where they were. A foldout or multi-page map in the on-site booklet, at maybe twice the size or even 1.5 times, would have been a huge improvement.
The convention center was, in general, a huge improvement (IMO) over the Milwaukee one. Of course, I only saw that once, last year, but still. This was nice, spacious, plenty of room for most con events, and the dealers' space in the Exhibit Hall was lovely huge. Of course, it was also annoyingly disorganized. Between the central refreshments stand, and several more-than-one-booth-sized booths (in some cases vasty), there was no grid to it. It was quite difficult to figure out how to get back to something unless you knew the name and consulted the map or the hanging signs (now THAT was well-done!) showing the rough booth numbers - again, easier to use the board maps, although the map in the booklet was in fact barely readable, making it an improvement over the con-center map. It was also difficult to wander through and be sure you'd seen everything. It would have been nice if the huge-ass stuff had been put next to the refreshment stand, or along the walls / in the corners so that there could have been more of a grid to the center - and if the double-wide ones had been placed where there was a double-wide spot instead of jammed in across what would otherwise have been aisle space. I'm not sure if they did the latter. It's just the best explanation that I can quite think of for the weird jogs in some of those routes - either that or they just hate us. ;)
The rule about not eating outside food in the convention center was flaunted all weekend. Bagels were popular (there was a quite-good bagel shop down near the hotels, with a black and yellow sign, that sold bagels without spread for $.69 per or something like $3.19 for a half-dozen), as were various bags of snack mix, but I also saw McDonald's, sub sandwiches that didn't look like the con center offerings, and (in one of the bolder violations I saw) a pair of Domino's pizzas (delivered to our 7th Sea table by a relative of one of the players, who thought it would be rude to feed just one person in a game, and so fed all of us - we boggled, then thanked extensively and took advantage, being not stupid).
I wouldn't mind it so much if the food weren't mostly lackluster and probably not that good for you. I avoided the pizza, which definitely wasn't good for you. The muffins served at the Espresso place were gross. The subs were iffy (at the pizza place) and nasty (at the sub place: I threw that one out halfway through and just at the chips). The chicken caesar salad (from the pizza place) was good, but the portion would be considered too small for a meal by most people I know (and it wasn't priced as a side salad, trust me). There were a bunch of other places, in the exhibit hall and down a side hall, but these were closest to the games. I suppose I should have put more effort into finding out if any of those places served good stuff, but most caused me to wince in the awareness that they probably weren't very good for me.
It was interesting this year - several artists I saw in the art show last year were in the exhibit hall this year, all at one shared booth (there were a number of other artists in the exhibit hall this year, but I think they mostly did that last year too). The art show was still full, but in a smaller room. I didn't spend much time there as it didn't hold my interest very much this year. I came away relatively cheaply - I only bought two t-shirts and a copy of Basari (a board game from Out of the Box Publishing that's quite fun and is played by 3-4 players). I also am getting 7th Sea - the player and GM guides, so far - but didn't want to buy them at the con and have to carry them back. (Basari was on a special con price deal; 7th Sea not only wasn't, there were no player guides still in evidence at their table.... I have those already ordered, though, and managed to find them used at that.)
Having two mornings free (Thursday and Friday) and two late nights (Thursday and Friday) might have worked better had Scott not had an 8 am game on Friday...so I got up at 6:30 every day (except Sunday, when we got up at 7) and still had two days that ran until 1:30 am. Ooof. Not very bright, but much fun all the same.
It was really, really fun to see geeks getting together. I did take pictures of the con itself, mostly on Sunday - I'm not sure if any of those will have come out, however. I also got to see a friend of ours from college - but only a couple times. We wandered through the exhibit hall on Thursday morning, and then I veered off for food, and I think we re-encountered briefly in there later. I also saw him as he headed for a game in the same room I was playing in; I'm not sure which one, and he was gone when my game ended.
The trip back was, really, the funny part. We had everything down and set: back at the hotel by two, collect our bag that they were storing, have them call a cab. (We had to wait briefly while getting the bag, not more than a minute or so, until another employee came to help us. The first one was dealing with a guy who had a luggage-cart full of luggage - literally piled top to bottom and side-to-side stuffed - and was still having more suitcases brought to him. I suspect there was an organized group involved in this somewhere, of course....) We shared the taxi with another gamer on a similar schedule to us, arrived at the airport in plenty of time, and then sat around a lot. The Indianapolis airport is frightfully efficient with lines; the line for security was a lengthy throng, and they moved it through us quiet briskly - more so than at Portland, though I swear, they didn't have more people working it!
I browsed in the shops for souvenirs (as we had time) but didn't find anything I liked. I suppose if the gaming stuff and GenCon logo stuff didn't tempt me, that surely wasn't going to. But it gave me something to do besides sit around and read. That's what I tried to do next, but actually, I leaned against Scott and slept for about an hour and a half. He was very patient about this. At least, I assume he was, since he let it continue. (At this point, he had my camera as his "personal" item, as opposed to the carry-on, which was his backpack; that opened enough space in my backpack for the Basari game.)
We boarded on time and it was very orderly and easy, even though the flight was quite full. All the while, we were counting our blessings. Intermittent announcements (I even half-remember some stirring me out of my sleep) had been going on since we arrived, regarding delayed Chicago flights and largely consisting of "we will tell you when they'll arrive as soon as we hear they've taken off, sorry for the delay". Chicago had, you see, lovely thunderstorms going on and disrupting flights both ways. As the captain welcomed us aboard our plane, he was quipping that we should be glad we'd chosen Denver and not Chicago. Believe me, right then, I was!
At the same time they boarded us, the very late Chicago flight at the next gate was finally getting to board. The captain of our plane apologized for our delay leaving the gate and noted that it was because the ground crews were loading baggage onto both planes at once, rather than focussing on one or the other. I'm sure if they had focussed on just one, it would have been the poor, massively delayed Chicago flight. I wish they had. As it was, both planes were still there when the massing black clouds I'd been eyeing (they'd come up fairly quickly) broke into a thunderstorm over us. Lightning hit the ground on the field, and all the ground crew were called in.
Apparently, they go in and stay there until 10 minutes after the last observed strike to the ground, any time this happens. So we sat. And they came back out. And the next cell hit, and they went back in. The policy makes sense - I can't imagine leaving them out in that! - but it is a pity that neither flight got out of there before the storm hit. I really think one could have, based on the time it took. If the Chicago flight was ready it should have been them; if they needed more, us; but doing both at once strikes me as weird and a good way to nail both flights.
The captain was apologetic and generally nice to listen to during this time; he also called the light that notes the ground crew was called in a "Kmart light". It's blue.... That had me grinning, which he achieved several times, actually. We ended up leaving a half hour late (not too bad, I suppose, considering the storm). The drama was mostly on the ground and while we had some bumpy air later in the flight, there was not a wobble in the first ten minutes or so.
It became quite boring after that, thank goodness. They pushed a bit and got us in only maybe 10 minutes late; Scott and I still had about an hour after that to our flight. Then it turned out our flight was 15 minutes late. So we headed to that gate, grabbed dinner, settled in. There was a flight to Boston that was late out of that gate, so they moved us across the hall. Then our plane came in. Having sent us to gate 28, they sent the plane to gate 22. And rescheduled it to leave 25 minutes late instead of 15. (Betcha that plane came in from Chicago.) So we all trooped down there.
That was the end of it, though. Oh, they listed it as 35 minutes late at one point, but we made the 25 minute mark and got into Portland only 10 minutes late in the end. Our bag was one of the very first off at baggage claim; I grabbed it and we were out and on a shuttle to parking literally 10 minutes after we landed (not time-from-gate - from landing). Portland is no San Francisco, but that's still unheard-of fast for it. One good quote from the slightly punchy flight crew, as we taxied toward the gate in Denver:
Bing.
*intercom on* "Prepare for departure." *intercom off*
(Pause.)
*intercom on* "I mean arrival." *intercom off*
Needless to say, this was immediately followed by laughter, a cry of "nooooo!", and various jokes from the passengers....
One of my favorite quotes is actually not from a game, but from a sign placed up over one or another of the GenCon official booths, suggesting people stand in line for the other stations, not that one: "This line closed...crit. hit on computer."
Game quotes
I don't have as many of these as I'd like. I apparently stopped noting them down after the first day, probably due to general exhaustion, as I know there were good quotes in later days! Still, here's what I have:
"Nerve gas wouldn't affect Borg."
"It would annoy them."
"Oh, yeah, let's irritate the Borg."
"It's now or never!"
"Okay, it's never."
"I want to impersonate a Borg."
"At conventions, you can do that, because we want you to have fun." (GM, describing the fact that they apply certain rules more loosely at conventions.)
"As opposed to in regular games." (The nigh-inevitable player rejoinder, fortunately delivered in good humor.)
"Chock full of demon-y goodness."
"You have a watery, muddy sample of dead thing."
"What's bad about shooting things all night?"
"It's slimy and cold."
"Ewwww. Like my ex-wife."
"You can't Lo-Jack the demon, no."
"...tag the demon, and release it into the wild."
"...Lily's out sacrificing small animals...." (GM, summarizing what people were doing; Lily being the child of a vampire, I think she was trying to get 'dinner' but I'm not wholly sure as I missed part of that.)
"Be careful...he has two left feet. I mean he really has two left feet." (Spoken when the patchwork man joined in the dancing at a party....)
"Foul charlatan! You dare attack a woman??? Or...uh...whatever...." (Delivered after the bad guy attacked the aforementioned Lily, who was seriously vamped out at the time, claws, fangs, the whole works.)
"...they'd be eeeeeevil marshmallows." (after someone suggested roasting marshmallows over a picture that burst into flames after it was doused with holy water)
Warning: there will be spoilers in the game section. Most of them probably won't matter to you, because most of these games don't run the same from year to year, but I believe the Dragonquest and 7th Sea games may be the exception, and for all I know the groups could plan to run the same scenarios at other cons later this year even if there will be new ones by Gencon Indy next year. At any rate, I'm using cut-tags per game on it; you can go to the day of that post to access the view of it without the spoilers.
Enough about that. This is the general section, no game specifics at all. The trip went pretty smoothly, all in all.
We got to the airport Wednesday morning, arriving earlier than we'd intended. (Largely because it took less time to get ready, and less time to drive, than estimated.) This turned out to be a good thing. I've travelled a number of times since security was tightened, but apparently it's gotten even more fun. At 6:00 am Pacific, the line into security (which used to come all the way back to the passage to the ticket counters on bad days) went right past the passage to ticket counters and into the Oregon Market area, maybe halfway down that. Perhaps three times longer than the longest I have ever seen it before. And this was at 6 on a Wednesday - not, you know, a Monday or a Saturday or something....
The security personnel said that is normal now. They moved it along pretty quickly - it took us only a half hour to get through - but wow. They've upped things a little and now ask everyone to remove their shoes and belt (which was also requested of us at the Indy airport on the way home, so I assume it's maybe standard). I'm in the habit of removing my shoes anyway (since my old ones had metal supports in them and always set the thing off) and don't wear belts, but it was just a "blink, blink" moment. Some people were so, so upset at having to de-shoe. You'd think they'd been asked to strip to their underthings....
My backpack went through twice but didn't need to be hand-searched (I had the camera in it); Scott was in another line and said the only thing that happened to him was the security personnel complimented him on his beard. :) The flights were pleasant, very unremarkable, connections made easily; the Denver airport is a nice place to make connections, at least if you're all on one concourse (having never needed to leave the one concourse, I have no idea how nuisancy the trains or whatever are).
The hotel we stayed at - the Omni Severin - was quite nice. It was an older hotel, but elegant and kept up. One of the four elevators (one of two on "our" side) was out of service when we arrived; by the time we left at the end of the weekend, it was working, but we got in the habit of using the other side as it was generally faster. They botched our room key and it didn't open the room, but security let us in and rekeyed it and that was the end of that problem (total time about 5 minutes) so that's hardly upsetting. It was just a hotel room, but it was a comfortable, clean hotel room in a nice enough hotel that was near the convention center; that was plenty good. It was right next to Hooters, and the room we were in, the Windows faced the Hooters sign, which lit up in red neon at night. I tried to get pictures of it, but it was boring during the day and impossible to photograph without glare and blur at night. Scott and I found it quite humorous.
We walked over to the convention center via the skywalk to get a feel for it, and came to the conclusion not to use it again. It was rather round-about and parts of it wandered through areas of parking garages, not enclosed; it looked unfinished and felt a bit nervewracking. I'd originally thought I would feel more secure with the skywalk when I was leaving after one of my 1:30 games, but the thought of a parking garage at that hour was much worse than street level. We walked back to the hotel at street level and it was well-populated and clean; I never went on the skywalk again all weekend, although I would have if it had decided to rain when I wanted to be going back and forth.
The lines were a bit ugly. Wednesday night, the lines for badge registration and event registration were both huuuuuuuge, stretching out of the building. The line for Will Call (where Scott and I needed to arrive) was itsy-bitsy-tiny. Finding it, however, was a bitch and a half, as one of the other lines (Event Registration, I believe) went right across the front of it. Once we figured out that we just had to get through that line, we were fine: I walked up to Will Call and was immediately asked for my id so they could get my stuff. We were in and out in about 5 minutes from the point of figuring out where Will Call was. (One of my comments on the survey was a suggestion that the signs should be higher next year, so us short folks can see them when there is a line in front of them!)
Then we walked around Indy for a while, wandering basically. It was a nice walk. We sat in a park opposite the convention center for a bit also and, on the way up and back, Scott was most patient about stopping as I hauled out the camera. I haven't checked yet to see which of those photos are decent at a real size, though. I know I got way more photos of places in the city than I did of the con, in the end.... That counts Thursday morning. Since I didn't have any games on Thursday until 12:30, and the dealer's hall didn't open until 10, I went for a walk up to the Scottish Rite cathedral. If I'd had time to tour it, I might have admired it more, but it did keep me walking and there were some lovely sites along the way. It was probably good for me. I also found monument circle, which would have made a lovely navigational landmark if I had (but I didn't) made any more walks about the city later on in the weekend.
Anyway, two of Scott's events had been cancelled, but none of mine. The on-site book's map sucked: it was too small. The big boards with maps rocked, as they were easily usable - but you had to walk to where they were. A foldout or multi-page map in the on-site booklet, at maybe twice the size or even 1.5 times, would have been a huge improvement.
The convention center was, in general, a huge improvement (IMO) over the Milwaukee one. Of course, I only saw that once, last year, but still. This was nice, spacious, plenty of room for most con events, and the dealers' space in the Exhibit Hall was lovely huge. Of course, it was also annoyingly disorganized. Between the central refreshments stand, and several more-than-one-booth-sized booths (in some cases vasty), there was no grid to it. It was quite difficult to figure out how to get back to something unless you knew the name and consulted the map or the hanging signs (now THAT was well-done!) showing the rough booth numbers - again, easier to use the board maps, although the map in the booklet was in fact barely readable, making it an improvement over the con-center map. It was also difficult to wander through and be sure you'd seen everything. It would have been nice if the huge-ass stuff had been put next to the refreshment stand, or along the walls / in the corners so that there could have been more of a grid to the center - and if the double-wide ones had been placed where there was a double-wide spot instead of jammed in across what would otherwise have been aisle space. I'm not sure if they did the latter. It's just the best explanation that I can quite think of for the weird jogs in some of those routes - either that or they just hate us. ;)
The rule about not eating outside food in the convention center was flaunted all weekend. Bagels were popular (there was a quite-good bagel shop down near the hotels, with a black and yellow sign, that sold bagels without spread for $.69 per or something like $3.19 for a half-dozen), as were various bags of snack mix, but I also saw McDonald's, sub sandwiches that didn't look like the con center offerings, and (in one of the bolder violations I saw) a pair of Domino's pizzas (delivered to our 7th Sea table by a relative of one of the players, who thought it would be rude to feed just one person in a game, and so fed all of us - we boggled, then thanked extensively and took advantage, being not stupid).
I wouldn't mind it so much if the food weren't mostly lackluster and probably not that good for you. I avoided the pizza, which definitely wasn't good for you. The muffins served at the Espresso place were gross. The subs were iffy (at the pizza place) and nasty (at the sub place: I threw that one out halfway through and just at the chips). The chicken caesar salad (from the pizza place) was good, but the portion would be considered too small for a meal by most people I know (and it wasn't priced as a side salad, trust me). There were a bunch of other places, in the exhibit hall and down a side hall, but these were closest to the games. I suppose I should have put more effort into finding out if any of those places served good stuff, but most caused me to wince in the awareness that they probably weren't very good for me.
It was interesting this year - several artists I saw in the art show last year were in the exhibit hall this year, all at one shared booth (there were a number of other artists in the exhibit hall this year, but I think they mostly did that last year too). The art show was still full, but in a smaller room. I didn't spend much time there as it didn't hold my interest very much this year. I came away relatively cheaply - I only bought two t-shirts and a copy of Basari (a board game from Out of the Box Publishing that's quite fun and is played by 3-4 players). I also am getting 7th Sea - the player and GM guides, so far - but didn't want to buy them at the con and have to carry them back. (Basari was on a special con price deal; 7th Sea not only wasn't, there were no player guides still in evidence at their table.... I have those already ordered, though, and managed to find them used at that.)
Having two mornings free (Thursday and Friday) and two late nights (Thursday and Friday) might have worked better had Scott not had an 8 am game on Friday...so I got up at 6:30 every day (except Sunday, when we got up at 7) and still had two days that ran until 1:30 am. Ooof. Not very bright, but much fun all the same.
It was really, really fun to see geeks getting together. I did take pictures of the con itself, mostly on Sunday - I'm not sure if any of those will have come out, however. I also got to see a friend of ours from college - but only a couple times. We wandered through the exhibit hall on Thursday morning, and then I veered off for food, and I think we re-encountered briefly in there later. I also saw him as he headed for a game in the same room I was playing in; I'm not sure which one, and he was gone when my game ended.
The trip back was, really, the funny part. We had everything down and set: back at the hotel by two, collect our bag that they were storing, have them call a cab. (We had to wait briefly while getting the bag, not more than a minute or so, until another employee came to help us. The first one was dealing with a guy who had a luggage-cart full of luggage - literally piled top to bottom and side-to-side stuffed - and was still having more suitcases brought to him. I suspect there was an organized group involved in this somewhere, of course....) We shared the taxi with another gamer on a similar schedule to us, arrived at the airport in plenty of time, and then sat around a lot. The Indianapolis airport is frightfully efficient with lines; the line for security was a lengthy throng, and they moved it through us quiet briskly - more so than at Portland, though I swear, they didn't have more people working it!
I browsed in the shops for souvenirs (as we had time) but didn't find anything I liked. I suppose if the gaming stuff and GenCon logo stuff didn't tempt me, that surely wasn't going to. But it gave me something to do besides sit around and read. That's what I tried to do next, but actually, I leaned against Scott and slept for about an hour and a half. He was very patient about this. At least, I assume he was, since he let it continue. (At this point, he had my camera as his "personal" item, as opposed to the carry-on, which was his backpack; that opened enough space in my backpack for the Basari game.)
We boarded on time and it was very orderly and easy, even though the flight was quite full. All the while, we were counting our blessings. Intermittent announcements (I even half-remember some stirring me out of my sleep) had been going on since we arrived, regarding delayed Chicago flights and largely consisting of "we will tell you when they'll arrive as soon as we hear they've taken off, sorry for the delay". Chicago had, you see, lovely thunderstorms going on and disrupting flights both ways. As the captain welcomed us aboard our plane, he was quipping that we should be glad we'd chosen Denver and not Chicago. Believe me, right then, I was!
At the same time they boarded us, the very late Chicago flight at the next gate was finally getting to board. The captain of our plane apologized for our delay leaving the gate and noted that it was because the ground crews were loading baggage onto both planes at once, rather than focussing on one or the other. I'm sure if they had focussed on just one, it would have been the poor, massively delayed Chicago flight. I wish they had. As it was, both planes were still there when the massing black clouds I'd been eyeing (they'd come up fairly quickly) broke into a thunderstorm over us. Lightning hit the ground on the field, and all the ground crew were called in.
Apparently, they go in and stay there until 10 minutes after the last observed strike to the ground, any time this happens. So we sat. And they came back out. And the next cell hit, and they went back in. The policy makes sense - I can't imagine leaving them out in that! - but it is a pity that neither flight got out of there before the storm hit. I really think one could have, based on the time it took. If the Chicago flight was ready it should have been them; if they needed more, us; but doing both at once strikes me as weird and a good way to nail both flights.
The captain was apologetic and generally nice to listen to during this time; he also called the light that notes the ground crew was called in a "Kmart light". It's blue.... That had me grinning, which he achieved several times, actually. We ended up leaving a half hour late (not too bad, I suppose, considering the storm). The drama was mostly on the ground and while we had some bumpy air later in the flight, there was not a wobble in the first ten minutes or so.
It became quite boring after that, thank goodness. They pushed a bit and got us in only maybe 10 minutes late; Scott and I still had about an hour after that to our flight. Then it turned out our flight was 15 minutes late. So we headed to that gate, grabbed dinner, settled in. There was a flight to Boston that was late out of that gate, so they moved us across the hall. Then our plane came in. Having sent us to gate 28, they sent the plane to gate 22. And rescheduled it to leave 25 minutes late instead of 15. (Betcha that plane came in from Chicago.) So we all trooped down there.
That was the end of it, though. Oh, they listed it as 35 minutes late at one point, but we made the 25 minute mark and got into Portland only 10 minutes late in the end. Our bag was one of the very first off at baggage claim; I grabbed it and we were out and on a shuttle to parking literally 10 minutes after we landed (not time-from-gate - from landing). Portland is no San Francisco, but that's still unheard-of fast for it. One good quote from the slightly punchy flight crew, as we taxied toward the gate in Denver:
Bing.
*intercom on* "Prepare for departure." *intercom off*
(Pause.)
*intercom on* "I mean arrival." *intercom off*
Needless to say, this was immediately followed by laughter, a cry of "nooooo!", and various jokes from the passengers....
One of my favorite quotes is actually not from a game, but from a sign placed up over one or another of the GenCon official booths, suggesting people stand in line for the other stations, not that one: "This line closed...crit. hit on computer."
Game quotes
I don't have as many of these as I'd like. I apparently stopped noting them down after the first day, probably due to general exhaustion, as I know there were good quotes in later days! Still, here's what I have:
"Nerve gas wouldn't affect Borg."
"It would annoy them."
"Oh, yeah, let's irritate the Borg."
"It's now or never!"
"Okay, it's never."
"I want to impersonate a Borg."
"At conventions, you can do that, because we want you to have fun." (GM, describing the fact that they apply certain rules more loosely at conventions.)
"As opposed to in regular games." (The nigh-inevitable player rejoinder, fortunately delivered in good humor.)
"Chock full of demon-y goodness."
"You have a watery, muddy sample of dead thing."
"What's bad about shooting things all night?"
"It's slimy and cold."
"Ewwww. Like my ex-wife."
"You can't Lo-Jack the demon, no."
"...tag the demon, and release it into the wild."
"...Lily's out sacrificing small animals...." (GM, summarizing what people were doing; Lily being the child of a vampire, I think she was trying to get 'dinner' but I'm not wholly sure as I missed part of that.)
"Be careful...he has two left feet. I mean he really has two left feet." (Spoken when the patchwork man joined in the dancing at a party....)
"Foul charlatan! You dare attack a woman??? Or...uh...whatever...." (Delivered after the bad guy attacked the aforementioned Lily, who was seriously vamped out at the time, claws, fangs, the whole works.)
"...they'd be eeeeeevil marshmallows." (after someone suggested roasting marshmallows over a picture that burst into flames after it was doused with holy water)
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And damn. Either you've worked off ALL of your former bad airplane/airport karma, or you should, like, never fly again. O_o
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Reminds me of a trip to Disney World I experienced a few years ago. It was in the returning home- waiting in a Florida airplane, we were delayed from a storm. They had already told us to turn off electronic devices, however, so I flagged down a steward and asked him if I could use my Game Boy.
"Yeah, it's safe now. Hang on, let me make an announcement..."
He left. And then, from over the PA system...
"All children or adults acting like children who wish to use handheld video game systems or other electronics may use them at this time; we'll let you know when to turn them off again."