I set an alarm this morning, then woke up a solid hour & a half before it.
~sigh~
Still, breakfast with steel-cut Oatmeal was good, and then, on my way to the VIG lounge, this happened;

We, by which I mean Tom & Stacy & I, ended up in the line for early VIG access about 45 minutes before the actual access was to happen, but once in the line there’s little incentive to leave it, even if staying there is stupid, so we nattered & stood & walked & eventually got into The Halls Of Spending.

My checklist with booth numbers came in handy, though I keep forgetting that a booth on aisle 1700 might face onto the connector between 1700 & 1800; Missed a number of places on a first look that way, and it took me a ridiculously long time to find Jeph Jacques, by which time he had no books left for the day – More coming tomorrow.

Mark from Campaign Coins remembered me from when we chatted last year, which was kind of cool.

I didn’t get video of the hoardes of people rushing into the hall this time, I was kind of wandering around with Frank, who didn’t want to be trampled by the aforementioned frenzied hoardes. From memory, we were chatting with people from the crew behind The Bob & Angus show, including meeting Claire the Intern & her puppeteer, which was just awesome.
Also met Bob & his puppeteer, but Claire came first, and was just so friendly & well-meaning.

Played in a Savage Worlds Blue Planet game which was kind of fun; The game’s not out yet, though it’ll hopefully be released in November.
There were only 4 of the six players there, and as a combination of that & some cleverness* we burned through the 4 hour scenario in 2 hours.
I picked a character with ‘squid’ on the sheet, but it turned out to be a modified human with gills, and only the standard number of tentacles; Still fun to play, as we got involved in salvaging a cargo of guns which everyone wanted.
* when being chased by goons, why NOT call the Harbour Patrol & report shots fired?

While wandering around post-game, I took a lap through the card/board games hall, and spotted the tables for demos of the My Little Pony CCG.
I must try this game.
Apparently setting aside about 45 minutes for a demo would be about right.
yessss

Tom & Stacy showed up at precisely the right time to tag along for dinner, and after approximately a billion hours of conversation, we ended up staging out in a multi pronged voyage to The Spaghetti Factory, where nobody had spaghetti, and the food was really good.
also, Tom very kindly paid for everyone

Post-dinner, I had a ticket for Games On Demand. I still didn’t quite understand the GoD system, but I got into a game of School Days, which was a hell of a lot of fun, and which came to a natural conclusion in a little over an hour. (it was a two hour slot, but the game was ending)
The guy running it is the guy who wrote it, and it’s a good narrative game about high school. We went with a Noir high school where a member of the Math Club had been murdered, and it was hilarious.

Finished up by eventually finding the cafe where Steve & Monica were hanging out, and, well, hanging out with them. Very good coffee, so if you’re ever in Indy, do hit Bees Coffee on Capitol; Try the Agave Latte.

I slept pretty well last night, woke up feeling good, and headed down to breakfast to find that a storm of gamers had blown in, littering the lobby, the restaurant, and most importantly the Starbucks, with throngs of people.

Around this time I got a text from Tom & Stacy from Indiana, who’d just hit town, so we did coffee, and I’m my case a breakfast muffin, in the lobby of the Hyatt, where the Starbucks was bafflingly uncluttered with gamers.

The VIG room opened at noon, so we got there a little early & stood in line for a few minutes before the sedate amble to pick up badges/swag/cold water.
A certain amount of hanging around & going through the swag-bag happened.

After some sitting & nattering time there was a move towards lunch, via people’s hotels to drop off the aforementioned swag, and it was as I returned from the JW that Frank called, having just hit town, so I met him in the VIG lounge & he came along to a rather nice lunch at Johnny Rockets. Or maybe Jimmy Rockets; Not sure.

Post-lunch, it was back to the VIG lounge to meet up with Steve & Monica, then we ended up staging out to The Stink, for the acquisition of Free Stuff!
OK, so I got a “Stink 10” D6 and a bag thingy, but I also got to see people try Vegemite

After that, off to Scotty’s which is apparently a Gen Con hangout, but was mostly crowded & loud, and struggling to cope with food & drink service.
Still, we stayed there for a few hours, got the free die for ordering off the Gen Con menu, and eventually people drifted off, mostly to get sleep, I suspect.
Ended up wandering through the ICC with Frank, Monica, Steve & a couple of guys from Boston, Charley & Graham, mostly to see what was happening. Talked to some people behind a student-made ARG, the name of which escapes me, but which seemed all multi-media-y & complex.

As things do, the evening wound down, and we all wandered back to our respective hotels. (in the case of Steve & Monica, this involved getting a lift from Frank, because they had to spend one or two nights at a hotel out of the city centre. naturally, when it was time to go, the third person they’re staying with had vanished, said he’d be back soon, and wasn’t answering his cell, so I think they abandoned him after a half-hour or so.
there was also the issue of Frank’s van being parked outside a government building; he was concerned about being towed, where I was more concerned about it being surrounded by caution tape & being investigated by a bomb-squad robot

Tom picked up a Goblin mask


City-Building at Cardhalla.

A possibly recognisable person, “The Professor”

Last year, I wound up chatting late into Wednesday night with the Family Lewis, eventually wandering back to my hotel sometime after midnight, suddenly realising I was hungry, and ordering room service at 1:30am.
That totally didn’t happen again, because today was a Tuesday. Other than that, and a different hotel, it’s bang-on.

Surprisingly, they brought me a gift-bag of assorted Michigan-related stuff, which makes me feel guilty about not being organised enough to track down mini-bars of L&P Chocolate to give folks.
Then again, maybe that’s a kindness?
Is the rest of the world ready for the taste sensation that is lemon-flavoured pop-rocks in white chocolate?
Would I be able to resist telling them that Paeroa is a type of edible frog?

(Turns out that their youngest is obsessed with maps; Not sure whether to give helpful advice, or warn him off)

My book for the trip was Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, which was quite good, and which I have now finished. And started reading again, thanks to the Insomnias.

Clearly I need a new book, so I picked up an on-sale copy of ‘Redshirts’ from the one bookstore I could find at the Circle Centre Mall, because I don’t think I can make it through the next day or so without some recreational reading material.

On the way back from said purchase I had my first “Hey, I know that guy” moment when I crossed paths with some folks I’d met on the VIG tour last year. (I think one of them is on the Gen Con forums, and cropped up as knowing me on a How’s Your Con Prep Going thread)
He and his Crew had just rolled into town that morning.

Shortly after getting back to the hotel I got a call from Tom from Indiana, who was up to his neck in work, but wanted to say “Hi”, so there are now clever plans to go & do coffee or something once he rolls into town tomorrow morning sometime.

Just before I started writing this update I got a text from some other Gen Con folks, Karen & Tom & The Family Lewis from somewhere in Michigan, so I may well be catching up with them later on this evening.
I passed on the trading card stuff from my VIG pack to their youngest last year, and he was honest & cautious enough to make sure I knew that some of it was rare & valuable stuff

Note: There were a crapload of Toms at last year’s Gen Con, or at least it seemed that way from the people I met.
Tom from Indiana, Tom from Michigan, Tom from Ottawa, and I’m pretty sure there was another Thomas as well, and three of those were at the same table in the VIG lounge.

There was a Star Wars exhibit at the Indiana State Museum, conveniently located across the road from the hotel, so there went a couple of hours.
T’was interesting, with various models, and some hands-on technology stuff to do with robots & mag-lev which were overrun with children.
Since I was there, I did the rest of the museum, and got to see evidence of the Earth spinning.

More by luck than judgement (apologies to Ned’s Atomic Dustbin for the blatant theft of their lyric) I wound up seeing the pendulum knock down two pegs, some time apart, and there was evidence of the movement of a third.
Also, I took a nigh-useless reflected self-portrait.

I don’t want to tempt too much fate, even though I found the fourth die needed, but I’m more alert than I was yesterday, so hopefully I’m adjusting to the climate & time zone.
If not, there’s always the hotel gym & blatant caffeine abuse.

My book for the trip was Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, which was quite good, and which I have now finished. And started reading again, thanks to the Insomnias.

Clearly I need a new book, so I picked up an on-sale copy of ‘Redshirts’ from the one bookstore I could find at the Circle Centre Mall, because I don’t think I can make it through the next day or so without some recreational reading material.

On the way back from said purchase I had my first “Hey, I know that guy” moment when I crossed paths with some folks I’d met on the VIG tour last year. (I think one of them is on the Gen Con forums, and cropped up as knowing me on a How’s Your Con Prep Going thread)
He and his Crew had just rolled into town that morning.

Shortly after getting back to the hotel I got a call from Tom from Indiana, who was up to his neck in work, but wanted to say “Hi”, so there are now clever plans to go & do coffee or something once he rolls into town tomorrow morning sometime.

Just before I started writing this update I got a text from some other Gen Con folks, Karen & Tom & The Family Lewis from somewhere in Michigan, so I may well be catching up with them later on this evening.
I passed on the trading card stuff from my VIG pack to their youngest last year, and he was honest & cautious enough to make sure I knew that some of it was rare & valuable stuff

Note: There were a crapload of Toms at last year’s Gen Con, or at least it seemed that way from the people I met.
Tom from Indiana, Tom from Michigan, Tom from Ottawa, and I’m pretty sure there was another Thomas as well, and three of those were at the same table in the VIG lounge.

There was a Star Wars exhibit at the Indiana State Museum, conveniently located across the road from the hotel, so there went a couple of hours.
T’was interesting, with various models, and some hands-on technology stuff to do with robots & mag-lev which were overrun with children.
Since I was there, I did the rest of the museum, and got to see evidence of the Earth spinning.

More by luck than judgement (apologies to Ned’s Atomic Dustbin for the blatant theft of their lyric) I wound up seeing the pendulum knock down two pegs, some time apart, and there was evidence of the movement of a third.
Also, I took a nigh-useless reflected self-portrait.

I don’t want to tempt too much fate, even though I found the fourth die needed, but I’m more alert than I was yesterday, so hopefully I’m adjusting to the climate & time zone.
If not, there’s always the hotel gym & blatant caffeine abuse.

The exercise thing worked, it seems, as I got something like four hours of sleep; I’ll remember that, I hope, should the Dread Insomnia raise it’s ugly head again.
As it almost certainly will.

~ sigh ~

Free Breakfast today, thanks to a confusing card which arrived on Sunday.
I heard a scrabbling at the door, and an envelope addressed to me had been slid underneath; Inside was a nice hotel card, presumably from the room servicing department, apologising for the inconvenience caused by the toilet, and giving me a card for a free breakfast, tip included.
I have no idea what it’s about, as the toilet seems fine; It’s not fountaining raw wastewater to the ceiling, or even failing to flush.
Still, free breakfast.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks to the nice people at the FedEx in the JW Marriott, I’ve got some classy little cards with the details on the Big Red Couch, as seen below;

These turned out way better than I’d hoped for.

I was tired enough a handful of hours ago that I was nodding off while typing; Now I can’t sleep at all, and am reduced to sending blog updates to amuse myself.

Somewhere below there is a security patrol car doing a slow sad lap of the car park across the road.

Creepily, I have just noticed that the bedside light projects an image of everything on the bedside stand onto the ceiling. I can make out my US cellphone in some detail, though the TV remote is a featureless shape, as is the alarm clock radio thingy.

Part of the sleeping problem, I think, is that I’ve still got a low-grade illness going on, so there are intermittent bouts of fever, making it damn near impossible to get the bed at a comfortable temperature. I picked up some aspirin yesterday, blithely ignoring the “OMG, Asthmatics Beware!” notation on the box I might add, so I’m thinking I’ll take another one of those, try getting back to sleep, and if I’m still awake in another hour, I’ll say ‘enough’ and hit the hotel fitness centre for a while.
If I’m going to be involuntarily awake, I may as well get something out of it.

~~~

Well, there may have been fifteen minutes or so of uninterrupted sleep in there, but overall I’d call it a failure.
Off to the gym.

A combination of jetlag, bad sleep & some sort of cough made chunks of today a bit of a blur. As I type this, I keep zoning out, and the plan is to make it to 8pm or so before going to bed, to try to hurry along the adaption to a new time zone.

Thus, the high points;

I’ve got a new SIM for my American cellphone, and have already had a wrong number. So that’s working.

The missing FATE die turned up in the General Population section of my bag. Turns out that a black die doesn’t show up all that well against predominately black t-shirts.

Finished reading Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, and am trying to resist buying another book before Gen Con. Book was pretty good, as it happens.

Did some wandering around in the Convention Centre. There were people around, but sometimes they’d be out of sight, and you’d be walking through some creepy empty hallways with indistinct noises coming from Somewhere.

OK, I keep zoning out here, so I’m going to post it & go for a pre-sleep amble

Turns out I was way off in my guess as to when the case would be delivered; Got picked up from the airline at 8pm, assigned to a driver at 11pm, and delivered, by ‘Matt’, at 12:31 am.
The hotel, mercifully, elected not to call and wake me, so I checked to online tracker while involuntarily awake this morning at Oh Dear God a.m., wandered down & collected it from reception.

I guess now’s the time to open it?

Yep; All the important stuff is there.
not sure why I only packed three FATE dice though