MAGFEST 2015

Thursday Morning

My flight to MAGFEST was at 11:00 AM. I woke up at the crack of 2:30 AM. I couldn’t go to bed so I got ready to leave to the Atlanta-Hartsfield airport at 4:30 AM.

Waiting at the gate for my plane I met 3 people going to MAGfest. Rietz, Rodrick, and June. Reitz was looking forward to seeing Yu Mizake due to his composing in the Tekken series. He also scored Ridge Racer and Katamari Damacy. He told me his highlight at work was blasting Tekken music. Then some white person would look in his direction. Just when they are about to tell him to turn the music down, they see a black guy with dreads menacing, and then the person walks away and goes about their business.

After arriving in the Reagan National Airport, I took the Metro station to my Aunt’s condo. She squeezed her hands on my cheeks like an overbearing mother telling how much she missed her nephew. We ate an excellent Mexican restaurant District Taco. Imagine a Moe’s, but all of their salsas and sauces are superior.


Friday Morning

 I woke up at 6AM, anxiously waiting to travel to National Harbor for MAGFest. I was the first of the group of 9 to arrive at MAGfest. I went inside the convention center. It was beautiful. You could see the Potomac River from the atrium. Inside the atrium there was a variety of trees and plants, and shops in the shape of Colonial houses. Alex called it “It’s what the outside should be. Inside.”

I got my MAGFest badge and said I was part of Sadboys2K14. I was expecting Sadboys2K14 to be on the label but it was not. The badges looked like a Tron disc. On the way back to the hotel I ran into Sarah. A classmate I went to high school with back in Iowa. The last time I saw her was at PAX East 2013 in Boston.

I saw Matt in the hotel lobby at the Hampton Inn. We greeted each other and then later I saw Christina.

Matt and I proceeded to browse MAGFest. The arcade area was packed. MAGFEST had the largest selection of free play machines I’ve seen at a gaming convention and I’ve been to PAX East and Prime. The size of the arcade was East + Prime arcade freeplay x 6. Besides over 300 arcade machines to play, there was dozens of computers hooked up to play old PC Games. They had 2 386 PC’s connected to play Doom II campaign co-op. 

Around 1PM, Kori, Mitch, and Rory arrived. Mitch was in his weird suit. Matt had two rooms, the 504 room was ready but the 1004 was not. Until then, I had my luggage in their room. At this time, Matt and Mitch were changing into their cosplay outfits. Mitch “teased” me in the loosest of terms that I was getting a dick show. Oh was he in for a treat later on at MAGFEST. 


We were hungry and we headed out for the Cadillac Ranch. A good Burger, sandwich, American type restaurant. I ate a BBQ Burger all my fries, and all of Flabslapper’s or whoever’s fries.

When waiting for Alex, Mela, and Jayson; Mitch, Christina, Kori, Rory, and I watched Maury. It was boring. The Mike Slocum commercials were 100% Tim and Eric. Mitch asked if I saw any of those commercials because he had a law office in Alabama and I said no because there is a super successful lawyer Alexander Shunnarah that owns almost 20% of all billboards in the state of Alabama. While watching boring TV, Matt was waiting in the hotel lobby checking the progress of the other room. We were wondering a scenario where Matt got mad and start beating up the fuck out of nerds.

When the room for the “sexless nerds” was ready, Alex Mela and Jayson arrived. We automatically thought Alex was already cosplaying as Ermac or a Mortal Kombat character due to the color configuration of his coat and his ninja balaclava. 

From 3 to 5 PM I walked around the convention center. I went to Jamspace only to be disappointed there was no keyboard/pianos. I saw the concert hall which was a giant ball room with 2 stages on opposite ends.

I saw Jayson and Kori waiting in line at the Game Grumps panel. Kori cosplayed as Vera from Final Fantasy tactics. Ears made her 6’7’’ making her easy to spot in a crowd. At the Jon Tron panel Jayson was saying some crazy shit making some people in front of us to turn around. LONk and his friend JuanTron. Jayson said his grandparents worked at Auschwitz Germany, I corrected him saying it was Auschwitz Poland. LONk did believe for a split second that story was true. During the lead up to the Q&A Jayson, Lenk, JuanTron, and I were brainstorming the worse possible questions to ask for the Q&A.  Jayson “Hey Jon Tron could you say this one line because women don’t like me because of my acne and feces. What’s the hottest meme? What’s the dank meme? Are you going to that cosplay orgy and what are you dressing up as?”

After the panel most of the group of nine met up by the fountains in the atrium. We later ran into Hector our server at The Cadillac Ranch and he asked to get a picture of Matt’s Casey Jones. After 9 PM, I tagged along with Matt and Christina to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tournament. Matt met up with a larger and beefier Casey Jones. We left due to seeing no progress on the TMNT tournament 15 minutes after it was suppose to start.

I went back with Matt to the hotel where we just chilled for 30 minutes and at 11PM he was getting old and said he needed some sleep so I went away.


Saturday morning

 I woke up early. Got some breakfast. Ate about 10 French toast sticks and 1 pork sausage patty that tasted funny. The first panel I went to was the Katamari Damacy panel. Featuring Yoshito Yano and Yu Miyake, the composers of the game. While waiting in line for the panel I reseen a person I met 2 hours earlier in the elevator at the Hampton Inn who traveled all the way to Iowa to come to MAGFEST. Also while waiting in line, I saw Emily Reese, who I’ve seen and been to her panels she hosted on Videogame Music Composers in PAX Prime 2012, East 2013, and Prime 2014. Before the Q&A started they played a little Q&A song. I was the first to ask a question. The question was “What inspired you to do the Q&A song?” They were inspired by the energy in the room and wanted to give something back. They were filled with joy and excitement, seeing hundreds of people to come to the panel because they love their music.

After the panel I went to the restroom only to arrive at the autograph area for it to be completely full. The most unorganized part of MAGfest was probably the autograph line. 

For lunch I ran into JuanTron and LONk and I suggested them to go to the Cadillac Ranch. They enjoyed it. During that time LONk talked how much he loved Modest Mouse, and love that their new album was only on vinyl and their youtube video of their new album is it being played on Vinyl. It then delved into that one fucked up friend in college that wanted to show you the grossest porn. Then he wondered about the craigslist cosplay orgy, wondering if his Link costume was enough. Which all he needed to do was make an exertion noise. After the meal we went our separate ways. Another topic that was brought up was if he got popularity to do panels he would have a lists of questions already answered and a rap air horn going off for horrible questions.

I tagged with Mitch, Rory, Kori, and Jayson to the Zaibatsu Best Friends Panel. Mitch and Rory got to ask their questions at the panel. Once again Jayson was brainstorming horrible questions like hottest meme right now, favorite meme, and dank meme.

After the Zaibatsu panel I followed along with Mitch Kori Rory Kelly and Eric to some restaurant and then we decided to settle on Potbellies. At first Subway, then the Oyster House, and then Potbellies. They have great sandwiches. Afterwards we went to the Peeps store where they had all the possible Peeps and Mike and Ikes products as possible. I tried 3 of the hottest Mike and Ikes. I didn’t feel anything the spice until 20 seconds later and it kicked in. Kori offered me her “white Gatorade” which turned out to be White Cherry Powerade. She lied, but she was more shocked that I remembered.   

After the Potbellies, I went to The Lonely Rolling Stars concert and Eric tagged along. They covered Katamari Damacy and some Persona. Some of their covers were very metally where they didn’t sound like Katamari.

For 45 minutes Eric and I chatted about the videogames. Like Alpha Protocol, the Bandai Wonderswan, the retardedness of the Vita, Mass Effect, Assassins Creed. Still to this day the ending of Mass Effect 3 still prevents us from replaying the game.

Sometime after that Eric and I parted ways. I tagged along with Mitch, Christina, Kori, and Matt to see Power Glove. Matt was thinking it was the 80’s PowerGlove of Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon but it was a metal cover band of 80’s and 90’s videogame music. It was super metally it no longer sounded like a cover. So much double bass pedal and guitar shredding. Matt left because he was old and the music was loud. Mitch during the concert grabbed me and I proceeded to hump him and make monkey noises. Later I grabbed Mitch and jumped up in the air.


Leaving the concert area I danced/jumped/ flailed limbs wildly to some music in the hallway to the point I thought I was going to throw up. There was a nice volunteer that gave me a bottle of water, and later saw me at the atrium and wondered if I was doing okay. I wasn’t. Anyway after taking it easy for 20 minutes I was ok.

Alex Mitch, and I embarked to get some alcohol to stay up late looking for any excuse. Unfortunately all the bars inside the Gaylord were closed after midnight. We proceeded to go to the Cadillac Ranch. There was a doorman not only requesting ID’s but also that we are 25. I was one week away from turning 25. Mitch said “We’re not trying to rent the Cadillac! Alex later suggested the guy wasn’t an employee but just wanted a conversation. Later Alex created a story, that it was his fault he didn’t fuck my mom sooner which is why we couldn’t go into the Cadillac Ranch. Afterwards we walked back to our hotel rooms around 1AM and went to sleep.

Sunday morning 

I ate breakfast early and the couples Mitch and Kori, Alex and Mela, and Matt, and Christina were going to spend the morning go to the Smithsonian museums. There was no panel I wanted to see Sunday morning, and I played a lot of arcade games on Saturday. 

Me being the single creep I was tagged along. Mela then said “Turbo why do you have to ruin everything!” I responded “Since when did I become Jayson?” The trip consisted of Alex and Matt joking back in forth about Dadslapper who tried to commit suicide but failed. In the process the shotgun dropped and both his legs were blown off. Matt told the taxi driver “How does it feel to have the worse people? Which taxi driver replied In order to have good you need to have bad. Anyway Matt invited the driver to look at the museums which he said he can’t because he has 6 kids. Which Mela told Alex she at least wants one kid. 

We arrived at the Smithsonian Castle where Alex started whispering at  joggers “What are you running from?” Mela went to slightly annoyed to more annoyed after the 4th instance. Alex made a joke about Obama sprinting which Mela and I correct him on Kenyans being long distance runners not sprinters. Otherwise southerners would say Obama sprint back to Jamaica. 

The first museum we went to was the Natural History Museum. Alex really wanted to see those Dinosaurs. Going to the Natural History reminded me back in Summer of 2007 when I went with my family and I just did a museum speed run. 

After the Natural History we split into groups to go to other museums. Kori, Mitch, and I went to the Air and Space Museum where we saw planes and rockets. All early flight with gliders and balloons was Bioshock Infinite. Mitch was impressed by my airplane and  NASA knowledge confirming in his mind that I know everything. Mitch would have stumped me if the questions involved eating ass.

The last museum we visited was the American History Museum. They messed up drawing Pac Man in the gift shop. We were all hungry and we wanted to eat burgers at Ollies. We walked for almost a mile only to find out the place was closed. We then decided to eat at DC Thai. 

When we got picked up by the Uber driver. While waiting on Kori and Mela picking up alcohol, there was a homeless man with really saggy pants which bothered the driver. If the butt was frozen soon the balls would freeze off. Alex and Matt joked about maybe his ass was so hot, every house he’s been in got burned down, and that’s why he sits on concrete. Alex thought of a scenario if he was offered a hot meal and tried to sell it to get money. Mela gave the homeless man $2 which Alex said was the tax of him being an asshole.

When we got back we did a RA tries of Edible Panties which were awful. It was plastic table cloths cheaper and more disposable than the the Dollar Store ones. It was shitty flavored trash bags and took forever to wash out. If someone ate an entire thing of edible panties they probably would have died of plastic poisoning and it would have taken days to rinse out their mouths.

An hour later I joined Alex, Matt, Mitch, and Kori for the Random Assault MAGFEST podcast. I read off my congratulatory roasts of Alex, Matt, Mitch, and the Random Assault show. I gave my gifts to Matt and Mitch. The end closed out a Cash Cash remix of Katy Perry’s Birthday. Mitch wondered how I knew he liked Cash Cash. 1. He mentioned it on Random Assault. 2. He follows Cash Cash on Twitter. Besides that nothing more needs to be said.

Monday morning 

I ate some breakfast and went to the arcade to play some games one last time. Some of the rhythm arcade games were packed up.  I said my goodbyes to Alex, Mela, Matt, Kori, Rory, Jayson and Mitch. Monday the MAGFest queue room area was removed to make space for the Window Blind Convention. The last thing I was going to see was the MAGFest Closing Ceremony just to check it out. Unfortunately it ended short. One of the attendees died in the Gaylord Hotel Sunday night. I later heard he banged his head on the bed board. Nothing was elaborated on alcohol or drugs in body. The panel only lasted 5 minutes. After that I walked to the bus stop to go back to my Aunt’s apartment.

One thing for sure, I’m going to MAGFEST 2016.