Category Archives: Wreck-It Ralph

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70 Things I Noticed During PAX South

conventionsPAX South took place this past weekend in San Antonio, and I dropped in on behalf of originalgamer.com to help out with Video Game Jeopardy! and play some games.

  1. Rainy and cold on Friday. Did the weather follow the Penny-Arcade guys down here?
  2. First time I’ve ever seen people scalping tickets at a con.
  3. Weird con idea: Coat check-in
  4. Found it hilarious that OG forgot his battery pack and his phone died. Seriously, dude?
  5. Dafuq with all the Seahawks jerseys? I thought these were supposed to be nerds?
  6. Nice line for Video Game Jeopardy, hope my voice holds up
  7. Men’s room was out of soap, hopefully that means people are using it 
  8. Actually, I didn’t use any. Sorry, guys, I was in a hurry
  9. We’ve been doing Video Game Jeopardy for years and of course I goof up in front of our biggest audience by pulling up an answer when the contestant had it wrong
  10. The guy won easily, no harm done there. *whew*
  11. Despite all the Seahawks jerseys, ‘Cover Athletes’ was easily the most-hated Video Game Jeopardy! category
  12. Somebody actually knew the obscure Atari 2600-related answer (Pele’s Soccer) Impressive.
  13. The risk of picking random people for Video Game Jeopardy is that we may get folks that know little or know it all, we got two of the first and one of the second.
  14. Had a case of mistaken identity after Video Game Jeopardy, hadn’t had that happen in a while.
  15. Sorry, I have never worked at GameStop, though like many gamers, I’ve spent enough time at them for it to seem that way.
  16. Thought someone was giving away bean bags until I realized it was a chill area.  Derp.
  17. Saturday-If you don’t mind walking a few blocks there’s a $2.50 per day parking lot under the freeway at E. Houston St.
  18. Forgot to bring my 3DS on Friday, not making that mistake again!
  19. I always bring a box of Rice Krispies Treats in my backpack.  Just the thing to hold one over till the next meal.
  20. Nerds love em too, which is good for sharing
  21. Seriously.  Anime, comic, furry, video game, whatever-con. Nerds flip for Rice Krispies Treats.
  22. Left my gloves at a friend’s house a few weeks ago, sure would have come in handy today!
  23. Random guy came up and offered me a Saturday badge because he was looking for a guy ‘with a red shirt and a fist on it.’  Lucky for him I’m honest.
  24. Weird thing: He apparently didn’t notice I was already wearing a badge.  Hope he found who he was looking for.
  25. Saturday con day breakfast: Breakfast on a Bun with sausauge.  If you don’t know what that is, have breakfast at Whataburger the next time you see one.
  26. Oh, they do have a coat check here.  Cool.
  27. So one hall is to hold the line to get into the other one? I am a little disappoint.
  28. Remember when arcades weren’t just fighting games? Pepperidge Farm remembers
  29. Maybe its because I’ve been to E3 but my initial reaction to PAX was slightly underwhelmed
  30. What was there was cool, but in terms of volume, other cons have more stuff.  Quality vs. quantity, I suppose.
  31. Also, I’m also not a OMG HARDCORE GAMER so I’m not exactly the ‘target audience.’
  32. Plenty of signal, no data, thanks Cricket/AT&T!
  33. Crisis:  3DS battery light turns red OH NOES I’LL MISS ALL THE STREETPASSES
  34. Nintendo: Y U NO USE USB?
  35. Good idea: Arriving half an hour early for a panel. Bad idea: Standing in line for about a half-hour waiting to get in
  36. I own an iPad mini, a Windows 8 tablet, a smartphone and still ended up using paper and pen to take my notes.  Yay for dead trees!
  37. Weird moment: Sitting at the lower level of the Rivercenter food court eating, looking to my left, and seeing people’s feet.
  38. They had shoes on, so it wasn’t that bad
  39. Weirder moment: Seeing a Starbucks gift card next to said feet
  40. Weirdest moment: Asking the owners of the feet if they had dropped it
  41. The card wasn’t theirs and I was too honest to take it. Oh well!
  42. Thought I saw the paleta man but it just a bicycle-rickshaw thing BOO
  43. Scott Kurtz was the only celebrity I knew of, so I said hi, told him I enjoyed PvP and went on my merry way.
  44. I probably weirded the dude out. Sorry man, couldn’t think of anything clever.
  45. Booth observations:  No demo, no write up.
  46. I also don’t think my editor is interested in Kickstarter projects.
  47. Saw one booth that looked like a T-shirt company-cum-game developer…huh?
  48. I tended to ignore booths that had ‘just another’ shooter/platformer/adventure game.  Yes, I’m jaded
  49. No interest in mobile games, either. Sorry, guys /shrug
  50. Loneliest booth was probably Gamechurch.com
  51. Sitting across from an empty seat resting my feet and some gal just sits in it.  I guess being pretty means not having manners.
  52. The next gal that showed up after Ms. Thing left asked if the seat was taken.  Go fig.
  53. Not interested in swag, but Astronaut ice cream?  Yes, please!
  54. I have no idea why they had Astronaut ice cream.
  55. Rest time = Streetpass harvest time!
  56. Losing weight is good. Having to constantly pull up my jeans is annoying, made me like a bleeping teenager
  57. I referred to the jean-tugs as the ‘reverse Picard maneuver’
  58. Lots of compliments on my ‘I can wreck it!’ shirt again, woo!
  59. Realized after the fact that I overpacked and should have left my Bluetooth mouse/keyboard at home.
  60. Observation from OG: There were no volunteers barking at attendees like at other cons
  61. Wonder if it’s because the attendees seem to be a mite older here?
  62. Regardless, perhaps other cons need to jazz up their marketing and call their volunteers something else to add prestige and respect to what is a very thankless job.  “Volunteer?”  Boring.  “Enforcers?”  Oooh.
  63. Not sure what I’m going to do for Sunday.  I pretty much saw all the booths yesterday
  64. Made darn sure to charge my 3DS last night
  65. Also remembered to fill my water bottle before leaving the house this time.  Mmm, home water.
  66. The weather was so nice I almost forgot my coat when I left
  67. Now that the event is over, I can finally delete all those ‘PLEASE COME SEE OUR STUFF’ emails from devs.
  68. Great, now they’re finding me on my Twitter
  69. Obligatory work item: My legs should not be this sore after the fact, need a gig where I *don’t* sit on my tail all day
  70. PAX South is probably the best fan-run gaming convention around and I can see why folks love it so.  Its not really my thing; if I go next year it’ll just be for a day.  Plenty of my friends had a blast, though!
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RANDOM REVIEW: 2012

2012 was an interesting year for me.  I got into my first car accident, purchased a new vehicle, and started going camping again.  Needless to say, ‘interesting’ doesn’t always mean ‘good.’

After a year of experimenting with e-publishing my first e-book: “One Sheet Stories.”  I finally completed “The Rules of Tech Support.”  It has been doing fairly well.  I have also published “Seven Super-Short Sci-Fi Stories” and “Con Fluff 1” since then, so things are coming along nicely on the writing front.  Curiously enough, I am now moving from the digital realm to the physical one: 2013 will see me showing up at conventions to sell paper copies of my books and hand out business cards and flyers to get the word out about my writing.  In all honesty, I’m looking forward to going out and talking to people, pressing some flesh, and then reaching for the hand sanitizer. 🙂

In February, I went to Furry Fiesta to see what the whole ‘furry’ thing was about.  There, I discovered a bunch of cool creative people and decided to venture further down the rabbit hole (ba-doom, tissh) when I got back.  I went to some local meets, made some friends, and even went to a second furcon, Oklacon, in October.  While Oklacon wasn’t quite as knock-my-socks-off as Furry Fiesta was, I still had a good time.  In addition, furry conventions have provided me with a plethora of themes to write for, culminating in my first furry e-book: “Con Fluff.”

Somewhere around August, I got the feeling that my ‘side projects’ were getting in the way of my own.  Being the drummer in a band, the editor for a video game website and helping out with a new convention that was starting up in town was just taking up too much of my time, so I quit everything.  Indeed, as the last few hours of 2012 tick away and 2013 approaches, I am now just a writer of stories, podcasts and blogs.

I’m looking forward to 2013, it should be a fun year full of conventions, stories, new people to meet and of course, furries!

Happy New Year, y’all!

Some of my favorite posts from 2012:

“I am a furry”

“You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight, and you don’t bring human art to a furry con.”

“This reminds me of an episode of My Little Pony!”

“There’s just something about seeing your name on paper.”

“I think Dust has restored some of my faith in gaming.”

“I know darn well there’s no signal, but I keep checking my phone. I may have a problem.”

This one is from Dec. 2011, but its too good to not revist: ‘and then came the fishnets’

 

 

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RANDOM REACTION: Wreck-It Ralph

Thank you, Disney, for finally giving us a really good movie about video games.  Wreck-It Ralph is an homage to all of video gaming, not just the ‘arcade days.’  The best compliment that I can give to it is that you don’t have to know anything about games to enjoy it.  Granted, you’ll get more out of it if you have played video games, but they do a good job of explaining how things work in the world behind the arcade screen.

The video game cameos/references/in-jokes all made sense.  I never got that feeling of “HEY! LOOK! IT’S SO-AND-SO! AREN’T WE CLEVER!” that sometimes comes with movies like this.  Everything just felt right.

Despite being labeled as a kids’ movie, Wreck-It Ralph has some dark moments and is rated PG.  There were plenty of funny moments, and I heard as many adults laughing (including myself) as I did kids throughout.  I am going to gladly watch it a few more times in the theaters and buy the inevitable Blu-Ray release.

YOU’RE GONNA LOVE IT!

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I’M GONNA WATCH IT!

You Can Fix It!

I’ve been hyped up for Wreck-It Ralph ever since I saw the first trailer.  While Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was a fun ride, it was more geared toward the NES kids that are just a hair younger than I am.  Tron and Reboot gave us a look into the ‘world inside the computer’ but Wreck-It Ralph is a love letter to the arcade games many of us dropped numerous quarters into back in the 70s and 80s.

The story centers on the titular Wreck-It Ralph, a “bad guy” from a fictional early 1980s arcade game who has grown tired of playing that role for the last 30 years.  He attends group sessions with other bad guys including such heavyweights as Zangief from Street Fighter, Kano from Mortal Kombat, Neff from Altered Beast and even Clyde (the orange ghost) from Pac-Man.  In an effort to become a hero he jumps into other games, eventually putting the arcade in jeopardy.

Disney has even gone through the trouble of making fictional posters, TV commercials and even real “Fix-It Felix Jr.” arcade machines.  I can’t wait, because the movie just feels right based on what I’ve seen in the trailers.  Those of us old enough to remember when arcade games were video games should probably watch this movie, it looks to be a fun one.

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