TURbo's Journey of PAX East 2012
Thursday
I departed to Atlanta on a 1.6 hour drive to get on a plane to Boston at 3:30 PM. I was pumped. I was listening to Two Steps From Hell and a lot of the Quad City DJ's mashups. It felt like Christmas all over again. I was going to see old pals again and meet some new ones.
I arrived in Boston around 6PM. The plane was a little slow due to some problems with the engines starting. I called Willyfresh telling him I arrived in Logan. He was by the baggage claim. I told him I was the person waving my hands up and down the escalator. During the chat of leaving to get to the parking garage, Willy forgot where he entered the airport. Then in the parking garage, we spent about 5 to 10 minutes trying to find his station wagon. It was nice chatting with him and it reminded me of last year. We chatted about what we were going to see and do. Willy paid $9 for parking but forgot to pick up the ticket, which he later called himself a fucking moron dumbass to the tollbooth guy for forgetting. The tollbooth guy laughed.
After leaving the airport parking garage, we embarked on a fucked up 8 mile journey guided by the GPS. Just getting on the road, a taxi barely skimmed us. It was a crazy Taxi. An SUV in front of us broken down, and luckily a car let us pass through otherwise we would have waited longer than 5 minutes. We managed to arrive to said apartment we were staying at.
After getting our stuff in, we decided we would go outside find a taxi and meetup with Zanthis or turbobison. Hang out for a couple of hours and then take the cab back at midnight. Unfortunately we had no taxi phone numbers. Willy and I started to walk in the dark in a heavily populated minority area of Boston “Jamaica Plains”. Willyfresh joked that we were the only white people in a 1 mile radius. There was some homeless guy saying things toward us, which I started picking up my walking pace. After walking away from the apartment for 20 minutes I went inside a pizza restaurant and asked for a local taxi. The guy working the counter said there was one right next door.
I tried opening the door it was locked. There were 2 people working the front desk. They looked very strange at me. The sign of the Taxi and Limo service seemed odd. It was just a generic image of a Limo and nothing more. Willyfresh said “Don't call.” Later I was thinking that maybe they used their taxis and limos as an escort service and drug running, and not a point A to point B destination. Like “Our bosses said nothing about 2 white 20's year olds ordering a taxi.” So Willyfresh and I walked another 20 minutes back to the apartment. We were a bit tired. We walked over a mile in the heavily minority populated area of Boston for a chance to get raped. We got something to eat from the local convenient store. We ordered a large pizza and a 2 liter Sprite. I bought 4 32 oz. Powerades for Friday and Saturday because the drinks at the convention center aren't cheap.
The rest of the night we chatted about videogames, and watched some Arrested Development. Willy showed me the last 10 minutes of the Wrestling LaserTime stream Horse Hogan vs. Hollywood Hogan. It was pretty funny. For bedtime, Willy and I rock papered scissored over the super firm futon. I won so I got to sleep on the super firm futon and he slept on the floor. It took us another 2 to 3 hours until we could finally sleep. The mattress was ridiculously hard, there was no fan, and there was no good place for me to jerk off. I heard Willy go to the bathroom and I thought he was having some liquid shit when it was only gas.
FRIDAY
We were both up super early at 6:30 AM. While we didn't have that much sleep we were pumped up for PAX. I asked Anindya for a cab phone number to get directly to the BCEC. He said Brookline Cabs. We called Brookline Cabs, but it took them a while since we were Glen Road in Jamaica Plains and not Brookline. Anyway luckily MetroCab just so happen to be on the street while we were waiting for the Brookline cab and we went straight to the BCEC. It wasn't bad. It was under $20 for being 6+ miles from the convention center. We got there at 8AM. There was a long line. During the wait outside, I got to see Tyler Harville, one of my Omeganaut friends from last year. All I said was “HEY TYLER!” and he responded back.
I got to see Travis and Angela, and meet this year's Omeganauts. Besides meeting Ross and Cassandra, I met PorkBuns and FiascoKnowsNYC who managed to go all the way to the finals. I had a quick 1 minute chat before they had to go away and get Omega briefed.
While inside, Willyfresh and I walked towards the queue room and started talking to people in front or behind us. One of the guys had a 3DS and was happy that he could street pass with a lot of people, and said that the Streetpass was the only reason he got a 3DS. While walking to the queue room I noticed churcheswife and said hi to churcheswife. She said to me “Hi internet.” In the queue line, there was a beach volleyball being tossed around by the crowd. One side of line would collectively boo if the beach ball was hit away from them. I brought 1.5 Piggybanks filled with pennies to give out to people dressed as Assassins. I gave a couple hundred to some guy dressed as Ezio. Unfortunately, I dropped that piggybank 5 feet from the ground and it shattered, dispersing all the pennies. There were over 100 people that had a collective sigh and someone yelled “This is why we can't have nice things!” Some person made a lame Arrow to the knee joke, which resulted in a person 2 lanes away say “If you make that joke one more time I will kill fucking you.” There was another person that wanted the cardboard foldout spiders or whatever creatures that came in the swagbag. A couple seconds later, 20 to 40 people in proximity to him started giving him the cutouts which he was so overjoyed he could have a mega large cardboard cutout army. There was so much spontaneous help. I also had some PC games I gave away waiting in the queue room. I gave out Halo 1, Red Faction Guerilla, Assassins Creed 1, and some other PC games to people.
FRIDAY MORNING
The PAX show floor was not as compact as last year. It was 20% larger than last year and the aisles were bigger, but it felt just as packed as last year. Borderlands 2 had the longest wait of all the games. There was less junk bulk swag like pens, and buttons, and higher end swag like T-shirts and electronics. There was elaborate Easter egg a hunt done through twitter, but the Wi-Fi at the convention center wasn’t that good which prevent me from entering any of the competitions.
When the expo hall was opened, Willyfresh and I headed toward the Assassins Creed III exhibit. There was no wait. It was pretty awesome. What Ubisoft demo'ed was pretty awesome. It was the Battle of Bunker Hill. The improved engine could handle up to 2500 people on screen compared to 200 people in the previous games. The scope and scale of the demo was nothing compared to the previous Assassins Creed games. The assassin had no recycled animations from the previous games. The tree climbing and rock climbing was nonlinear compared to climbing buildings. The rope dart where Connor shoots a dart at a British soldier, jumps off the tree and then hangs the soldier in the process was pretty kick ass. The executions are even more brutal and awesome. I was very impressed by the Assassins Creed III demo. I then preordered it to get an Assassins Creed III shirt.
After the Assassins Creed III demo, I got to meet Zanthis(David). We decided to go check out the Max Payne 3. We had to wait about 90 minutes. During that time, we chatted about TalkRadar no longer existing, LaserTime, videogames, and the ending to Mass Effect 3. That was the first of many 5 to 10 minute conversations I had with people about Mass Effect 3. During the wait I did a short promo for the POW Block. While waiting for Max Payne 3, I got to see Mitch for the first time. Matt, Alex, Dan, and Mela were also present.
Before meeting Brett Elston, we were all singing a couple lines from Lunchbox’s “Happy Birthday to Brett Matt, David, Willy and I ran into Brett Elston in the Capcom booth where we said hi, and Matt asked if there was something he loved about Dead Rising. Brett had no comment. He had another question about the Tekken vs. Streetfighter DLC and Brett was ok since Blanka is still there. It was nice seeing a familiar face and saying hi. Churcheswife and KnucklesDawson stopped by the booth. This is when I said "Brett, I can't believe you fucked her in the ass without permission." Which all Brett could do is be silent, and shake his head.
After Max Payne 3, David, Mitch Matt, Willy, and I walked to .9 miles to South Station to get something to eat to avoid the tyrannical $8.00 shitty food. We all got McDonalds because it was the cheapest. I got to do my special handshake with flabslapper where we made a jerk off motion with our right hands before we high fived. Despite all the shit we give to each other especially Mitch, everyone was very cool. Maybe the internet makes us bigger assholes than we are and will never be a decent substitute to interacting in person. Mitch thought I was a murderer, and all I heard about Jayson was that he was an animefag and retardly into League of Legends. At McDonalds for $3.66 I had a McGangBang. That was my breakfast, lunch, and dinner that Friday.
After eating I went to go to the Bioware Mass Effect panel which by the internet, it seemed like this panel would be the biggest thing ever. There would be a riot and shit would happen. There would need to be arm guards. I went there 2 hours early and I was the 800th of 1200 people in line. In front of me there was a couple that came from Louisiana, and 2 guys from Rhode Island. One of the guys from Rhode Island reminded me of Strangleme with the use of his yo's. He was a cool guy. During the wait I got to take a picture with the face model of Samara (Rana McAnear). from ME2 and ME3. Also in line I engaged in at least 25-30 minutes of Mass Effect story and Mass Effect 3 ending discussion. A girl that was next to me didn’t like the ending, but she said her favorite character was Zaeed Messani so I couldn’t take it seriously. The panel was only 10 minutes of Q&A and most of it was about the development of the Mass Effect series. Patrick Weekes I felt sort of made some new canon on the spot with not everyone dying on the Citadel because the Citadel pieces itself has a strong enough Mass Effect field to function and sustain life even if was split apart. Someone had a question about the husk statues on Ilos, and wondering what they were, but Bioware would never flatout say yep that was the Insuannon the ones who came before the Protheans. I discovered I was a bigger fan compared to others there, when I could answer any question anyone had about Galatical Geography in Mass Effect. There was no riot and most of the people were pretty cool. After the panel ended I got to meet Katie(@Katiesaurus). We talked about the ending of Mass Effect 3 and other stuff. She had another panel to get to, and I tried to find willyfresh.
Unfortunately, Willyfresh phone battery was dead, and he had no way to contact me. This was bad since I had the only key to the apartment we were staying at. I went to the main entrance where I got to see the Random Assault crew again. During this time at the main entrance I got to meet turbobison and tokengirlstfu and shanghaisix. After they left, a couple minutes later Bladdercat and her friend Joe saw us. She identified Matt and Mitch by their hats. I got to tell Bladdercat how amazing her fan art was for LaserTime, TalkRadar, and Random Assault. She asked if MrSuitman was here, and I said he lives in California and he is still in high school. After the RA crew was going back to their hotels and apartments, I foolishly tried to find Willyfresh.
During my quest of horribly trying to find Willyfresh in a 1.7 million square foot convention center I saw Will Harding, and we talked about our PAX experiences so far, and how soon he just got 3 day pass before they expired. Mainly due to me messaging him less than 24 hours on Facebook before they sold out. He talked since last PAX; Willyfresh attended some midnight launches at his GameStop.
GETTING DRUNK 8PM
When it was about 8PM I decided to attend the GamesRadar PC Gamer Witcher 2 Open Bar Party at The Brahmin. When I arrived there, I first noticed chinspired. I had a 30 second talk to him. I told him I loved his diarrhea jokes on chinspired. He wondered if he followed me on twitter. He might have, but I’m not going to be like Batman5273 and tweet about people that unfollowed me. I got to meet Zack, Rock, and Chris from Known Griefers. Tokengirlstfu, turbobison, shanghaisix, batman5273, kmdeftones, his girlfriend Ashley, Ryan Tajonick, Ted Rossi Dave Rudden, Chris Antista, Brett Elston, churcheswife, and knucklesdawson were there. When tokengirlstfu met Chris Antista I told Chris "In episode 143 you said you would have rebound sex with tokengirlstfu." Chris responded with "I said that? If TURbo says it, it must be true." Tokengirlstfu gave me a punch on the shoulder when I said that. Turbobison got me a Rum and coke. I didn't like it and I only drank a fourth of it. Batman5273 kissed me on the cheek and I felt the alcohol on my left cheek. Afterwards I went to Chris Linendoll and Rock Closson my alcohol role models who I respect greatly who got me my first beer last PAX East. I asked what is a good drink that gets alcohol in my system but isn't hard to drink. They both recommended Long Island Ice Tea. It was pretty good. It was the first time I was intoxicated. I felt lighter. I tried to do my agility moves and I could still agile move only I felt lighter. It felt awesome. I got to talk to kmdeftones and once again I talked about the Mass Effect 3 ending. He asked me what drink I had and I said a Long Island Ice Tea. I asked for him to get water, and he said “No buddy. You are getting another Long Island Ice Tea. I still had my agility and I could still move through crowds without making contact with other people. I felt lightheaded in a good way and I was dancing even more. I felt like I could do more than I ever could sober even though I knew it wasn't true. Churcheswife started dancing on Knuckles Dawson, and then Chris Antista started dancing on churcheswife, then I started dancing on Chris Antista.
Tokengirlstfu started slightly hitting people in a playful way. I gave her a slight hit on the shoulder and she gave me a checkmate. She twisted my left nipple and I could do was watch. Some later time when I was dancing tokengirlstfu said it was not okay to dance on her, but it was ok for Ashley because she had a vagina. Tokengirlstfu later said to Ashley she had a fuck buddy for the last 4 years, and all the privileges of having a fuck buddy. She went on about being a bridesmaid at some wedding and it being really shitty. During this time I was thinking of her tweets that matched up with the story she was telling Ashley. The first thing that popped in my head was her twitter feed a while back where tokengirlstfu had to choose between $7 Mass Effect 2 DLC or sex.
After The Brahmin was no longer an open bar, we all walked to the World of Tanks party which Lizzie Cuevas was our contact in. During the walk to the bar, someone asked Chris Antista about the Tyler Wilde Episode 71 Cult Apartment story. Chris said since that incident, some people took Tyler Wilde’s advice and left the compound. Tyler Wilde was one of the few people that had the balls to challenge the man that led the Charge of the Night Brigade. We got in and I danced even more. They played a lot of electrohouse remixes of songs like Don't Stop Believing, Don't Stop Till You Get Enough, Billie Jean, Shots, the song with the saxaphone Calabria and other pop songs. I thought it was bullshit at a 21+ bar and club they censored the words to LMFAO's Shots. The music was loud, and the club was barely lit. While it was dark, I could tell from 15 feet away, the girl dancing in the corner of the dance floor alone was very chubby. I did get to dance with tokengirlstfu but no contact was made. I did grind with some other ladies on the dance floor wearing my N7 shirt. The last song I remember being played was Levels by Avacii. I danced crazy. Afterwards, all the people I was with were outside the bar. This worried me because I didn’t want to be left behind. I sent a text to Joe that was “Ok went crazy o, avacii levels”
Outside there was some drunk Spaniard guy that took a piss on the wall. After he finished Ted Rossi yelled at him in drunk South Boston dialect, and they went back in forth yelling drunk obscenities. Ted Rossi was being a fucking boss on the walking to a restaurant to get something to eat. He had some trouble walking around line dividers, and bumped into walls. Ted Rossi's state made me think of TalkRadar 143, on how in the world did he find a place to eat in Boston with Chris and Brett last PAX? Ted Rossi crossed the crosswalk when it wasn't clear. He drunk strutted across the crosswalk. While taxis honked at him, he stretched his hand and tagged cars that were turning right in proximity. He got in a taxi but he left tokengirlstfu and turbobison behind. Afterwards I walked with Joe and Matt to the Hyatt hotel with the intent a taxi would be there for me to ride to the BCEC to pick up Willy and then head back to the apartment. While waiting there was a 20 ish year old girl and a guy twice her age and they went in the Hyatt at 1:30 AM. Matt, Joe, and I had a strange look on our face. When I got to the BCEC I started yelling Willyfresh, so he would get in the taxi. We got back to the apartment at 2AM. Willy and I were fucking tired.
While I felt sober at the end of the World of Tanks party, my mind was still in a state of altered perception. Even though I was tired it was still very hard for me to go to sleep. While trying to sleep I was hearing multiple random conversations all at the same time at South Station. The conversations in my head went on for another half hour until I went to sleep. Conversations ranging from Did you feed the dog, family coming into town, and other random errands conversations were going all at once. I felt like Jobe from Lawnmower Man when he could read everyone’s thoughts. It could have been from the ridiculous loud music at the World of Tanks Party, but I heard random conversations in place of a ringing noise.
Saturday
I got a hotel room for a day at the Park Plaza hotel. The first Tdard I met on Saturday was Addison. I gave him my boxed copy of Stalker Shadows of Chernobyl and a CD of Quad City DJ's space jam mash ups. For the queue line someone when the lines were leaving someone hit the beach ball at the empty lines it just rested their alone. There was a huge collective sigh and boo. When my line could go to the expo hall I walked towards the down beach ball and hit it back to group still waiting in line. I got a huge cheer for making hitting the beach ball towards the line of people. An entire line of people cheered me on. That was the only time I got to touch the beach ball, but I had a lot of fun in that moment. After I got the hotel cleared and meet up with fellow Omeganaut friend Darryl last year. Afterwards willyfresh and I took a cab back to the apartment which smelled liked rotten fish and piss. After getting the stuff from the apartment, Willy went on a long drive back to the Park Plaza hotel. We got lost. I told willyfresh “No matter what happens we will always be friends.” He responded with “Fuck you.” We managed to get back sometime later.
I decided to wait for the Community Manager panel. During the wait there were at least 15 people associated with LaserTime or TalkRadar. I got to see Chris Repretti and I talked again about Mass Effect 3 ending, and other stuff. I got to see Christopher Davis the Ginger Ryan Reynolds and the friend he was with and I had another conversation about the Mass Effect 3 ending and PAX. Turbobison, Matt Lewis, Joe Garcia, Bladdercat, and a couple of others were present. JugglerofGeese was also there and I got to chat with him a bit. I had so much fun talking to Tdards and Lasertime fans it never felt I was waiting in line. Kmdeftones (Kevin) was glad to see me, and that I was alright from last night.
The community panel was fun. Gabe, Jeff, Brett, Dan, and Andy gave their insights about being a community manager, and what they were in the games press before being community managers.
After the panel, we made our way to the Sam Adams food court. I saw GuinessGamer again, and he brought a bottle of Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum. I also got to see Sinsloth01 who also attended PAX East last year. And I asked him did you eat a KFC Doubledown and shit on your ex- girlfriend pillows and bed sheets as revenge. Which he said yes, so don't fuck with sinsloth01. He will shit on your shit. Later I asked him about the feeling you know you'll get diarrhea even though you just had food go down your mouth. Like if the food already in your digestive tract is already turning into liquid. I got to chat with catw0od about the QOTW experience he was mentioned in. GTA San Andreas is not GTA III. I saw therawski, originalMrBibz, old bro, and cousin. While seeing Mitch again I got him from behind and humped him 3 times. Also when I hugged Mitch my right hand was reaching for his butthole. He smiled, so I probably did a good job. During the podcast, Chris, Rock, kmdeftones, Ashley, Eric, and I just had a fun time talking while LaserTime was recording the podcast to the left of us. I gave out a lot of free PC games I had no desire of playing again. Chris and Brett made fun of the old PC games I was giving away even though they weren’t that old. Brett joked I might as well be giving away PS1 games.
After the podcast I got to meet Seth Killian. By his appearances on TalkRadar episodes 17, 45, 72, 86, and 140. I had a background with him to converse while not being into the fighting games. The story that Seth made $4000 to $5000 a summer Street Fighter hustling on the east coast. Also horrible academic burnout stories of writing papers about German women in the 1850's that lived in Agrarian societies, and starting EVO which is the world’s largest fighting tournament in the world. And I got to talk to Seth about CANGATE and how it was a big deal. Matt Lewis took a picture of me with Seth. It was neat meeting everyone again. I met Lizzie again and she said her band was on hiatus because Matt Payne had a baby. Her last band Sputterdoll broke up because the band members started having kids. She said maybe she should go solo which I said “If you go solo you would get pregnant and that you can’t break the cycle.”
When the podcast was over, we walked to the O’Malley’s Bar that was in the Westin hotel like last year. The good thing was that there was lax carding so Willy could get in. FTG did a podcast in the back of the bar. I got to talk more to Joe Garcia (Wons23). It was neat talking to another person that beat the single player game to Midnight Club II, which is one of the hardest racing games ever. The crazy hang time jump physics, and the horrible voice acting accents. I told him for the Tokyo part of the game, it’s like they got people from every difference province of Japan and China so there would be different horrible engrish dialects.
Kevin had another conversation about the end of Mass Effect 3, and Brett Elston said he wasn’t there yet in the game. I participated in another conversation about the Mass Effect 3. I didn’t contribute much to this one since I contributed to half a dozen others. Later in the bar I got to see how Brett Elston picks his nose, in a slowly and methodical way. He takes his pointer finger and circles his nostril, and going slightly deeper on each rotation. I watched Brett Elston pick his nose for 20 seconds. The way he picked his nose made me rethink how I picked my nose for the last for the last 20+ years of my life. That way of slowly circling in is way less prone to nose bleeds than just straight up reaching with the finger. Being in O’Malley’s Bar reminded me a lot of last PAX just chilling and talking with the fans. I had the same conversation with Brett about his description of TalkRadar 22 of how great PAX was really sold it for me, and made me want to go to a PAX. If you love games you should go to PAX. At the bar Andy Salisbury congratulated me of my dancing at the World of Tanks party. I asked Lizzie how many people at the World of Tanks party were associated with Games Industry or PAX since most of the people seemed to be College kids. While I was talking to Lizzie I was interrupted by The TastiestJam or TastiestJamb. I tried to talk to Lizzie and then his rebuttal was he bought a round of booze for Seth, Lizzie, Andy, and Dave so he was ok. He picked the wrong person to interrupt. I won’t forget you TastiestJamb. You were on TDar PAX Prime 2010 cast. You were born in 1986, grew up in Ohio. Hope to see you at next PAX Prime 2012 where I interrupt you at a bar when you’re talking to Games Jarnalists again. Lizzie said the guys that were just dancing to dance at the event were probably gay. Didn’t matter, had PAX. I told Chris Antista about a domain name idea teenagegrandmothers. He laughed and wondered where I got that joke from. I got it from a TalkRadar episode when Chris said 1990 was the year his girlfriend’s mother was born. I just added an extra generation to that joke. There was a guy from Montreal that came to the LaserTime podcast meetup.
After 3AM, a group of 10 was waiting outside for a cab. Bladdercat called Walt Disney and Howard Stark a commie. I replied saying that Howard Stark was a patriot and was crucial for developing the Atomic Bomb which ended World War II sooner, and then Chris Antista used what I said to Bladdercat’s rebuttal. Batman5273 had a special gift from me. He gave me a Front Towards Gamer Medallion, which FTG rarely gives them out to people. I hugged him, and got on my taxi with David and Willy to the Park Plaza hotel.
It was nice sleeping on an actual bed. It felt so good. The bed sheets were very tight. Before going to bed around 3AM Willy and I got into a conversation where we listed all the horror scenarios of jerking off in the hotel room, and lack of ability to jerk off the previous days. Semen hitting the ceiling and needing more than 2 socks for cleanup. Also trying to get out the bed without jizz drooling everywhere, the patheticness of calling out for help, and the response being “You did this to yourself, you’re on your own.”
Sunday
I brought everything with me to the convention center. I only had the hotel room for one night. For the show floor despite it being Sunday, it was just as packed as it ever was. I had over a dozen friends that were taken away by Jesus that Sunday. Church, family obligations or early flights back home.
I went to the Mega64 booth and danced with them. Waiting at the queue line I saw churcheswife and knucklesdawson again. I bought an Official Internet Soldierz shirt. For Breakfast I got skittles and 20 oz. Mountain Dew for $7.00 on the show floor there was 6 people Dress as Claptraps that were dancing. The last thing I did at the convention center was play The Great Dalmuti card game with Will, Dan Amrich, and some other people around 1:30 PM. I did ok. I never got last place. Someone playing Great Dalmuti with us traveled all the way to Anchorage Alaska to come to PAX. When I placed better than Dan Amrich I did a 30 second taunt. Someone said “Teabag him!” Dan had a serious face and said “Nobody is teabagging anyone.” Looking back I should have just sang Ke$ha’s WE R WHO WE R, since he is not a fan of that song.
When it was 2PM I made my way to the airport for my 5PM flight. When I got to my gate, I got to eat a burrito, which was my first real meal of the day. I was spent, and during the wait is when I started writing whatever I’m writing now. PAX weekend is something you’ll never forget unless you got really drunk.
Thoughts on PAX East 2012
I had so much fun meeting the same people from last year, and meeting new internet friends I’ve known for a long time. While videogames are the main attraction of PAX, I had so much fun just hanging out with my friends. It’s the only place where your online friends from all over the US and internationally can hang out and enjoy each other’s company. I miss PAX and I miss my friends. Hope to see you all and even more next year.
