Pencon 2012

Happy IGWJ Day! I, too, am looking forward to reports and updates on the shenanigans! Hope you all are having a blast ... actually, I'm sure of it. Take lots of pictures for us shut-ins and stay-at-home gamers.

Played some LoL with Eatslemons. Painting Minis. Son's playing Crimson Skies. It's not a bad swap. Not a GOOD one, but could be worse.

I'm having an off and on miserable Saturday morning at work. Have a little extra fun (and an extra beer or two or three) for me people.

GOOD AFTERNOON TO IGWJD PEEPS AT PENCON!!!! HOW DOES YOUR HEAD FEEL THIS MORNING!?!?!?!?!

No one is too run down

Damnit missing all the fun!

And house Rex is the winner!!

This is a silly place.

I'm alive. And home. Steve and Jim, thanks for having us and please pass along my regards to your extremely friendly and helpful staff as well as your wonderful cook (forgot to write in her comments book but you can add this "some of the best casseroles ever").

Brian, Mike, Zenke, Cheeto and the rest of staff, thank you for pulling it all together--especially with the tournament stuff that I know isn't easy to wrangle or keep track of.

To everyone I met, it was swell to meet you. Not a bad apple in the lot. Except for SuperDave, who's not allowed to come next year for some reason Oily mentioned that I can't remember (JUST KIDDING, DAVID!). Especially big ups to boogle, stilgar, mantid, mono, complex, domano, doak, toph, gunner, cube, cyrax, dyni, minarchist, atras and more who personally suffered through board gaming with me. IT'S PRONOUNCED TRWAHH. It was also good to see old friends/veterans like oily, mike, tangle, toph, the quesnels, the keldars, allen, phish as well. I'll make you play worker placement games with me next time, so don't think you're off the hook. Also sorry to anyone I kicked playing Joust.

More later!

Man, I want a full report with pictures. badly.

carrotpanic wrote:

I'm alive. And home. Steve and Jim, thanks for having us and please pass along my regards to your extremely friendly and helpful staff as well as your wonderful cook (forgot to write in her comments book but you can add this "some of the best casseroles ever").

Brian, Mike, Zenke, Cheeto and the rest of staff, thank you for pulling it all together--especially with the tournament stuff that I know isn't easy to wrangle or keep track of.

Holy crap cannot agree with this enough. About 20 minutes before getting to the castle it started to hit that I'd be spending the weekend with a bunch of people I had just met a few months ago on these forums, let alone actually meeting anyone in person. It turned out to be a great experience and kudos out to everyone who helped bring this all together. I can only imagine the amount of planning and coordination it took everyone involved, which just makes the weekend that much more amazing.

And really, major kudos to everyone in this community as a whole. You're all the best bunch of gaming nerds I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. It was just amazing to see everyone getting along and having a good time. If I was standing around for more than a few minutes, there was always someone around ready to start up a game and invite me to play. I'm still in kind of a fog from the whole experience, but rest assured that whenever we do something like this again, I'm 100% on board.

I also just made it home. Hope everyone who's still traveling arrives safely.

Thanks everyone for coming out this weekend. I speak for the entire Ravenwood staff when I say we really enjoyed having you stay with us.

And Oily and staff, you put on a great shindig, thanks for all the hard work!

Made it home myself about 30 minutes ago. Toph and drdoak are also safely back in Akron.

Thanks everyone.

Alive and home. f*ck this horrible weather.

Had a fantastic time. Saddened it's all over.

Here's to an almost successful Fireman Relay!

rabbit wrote:

Man, I want a full report with pictures. badly.

Steve/Lupus took about 1000 pictures, and Charlie/Wanderer took a ton of video. Hard not to refer to people as their real names, but then folks on here might be confused. Also I forgot props to Josh/Trueheart for being a snore/sleep startle champion and all around good guy roommate.

Just got home as well. Kind of nodding off towards the end, there =)

I would worry about pictures, rabbit. They're coming. Also, you need to PM me your address because you won a pint glass.

NSMike wrote:

Toph and drdoak are also safely back in Akron.

Yep we're home. It's a lot less fun here. And more cold.

In honor of Squee9's tagging, here's what his name tag would have looked like had he been able to come (and close to what everyone else's tag actually looked like).

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8467/8132209681_526b04be72_m.jpg)

Thanks to everyone who made this year amazing. To Penguin and the rest of the PenCon staff - it's been an honor helping in a small way. To Teneman, Mono, and the rest of the staff at the castle, your venue is amazing - thanks for letting us invade.

I'm supremely jealous of you all, but hope everybody had fun. Also, make with the pictures and stuff so I can live vicariously through the rest of you.

I'm really not sure if these bruises on my arm are from all of that JS Joust or collateral damage from those Dogfish 90 uber beer flutes... That Andrew guy is a fun dude, but if he's your drinking buddy for the evening, you're gonna be drinking, buddy.

CptDomano wrote:
carrotpanic wrote:

I'm alive. And home. Steve and Jim, thanks for having us and please pass along my regards to your extremely friendly and helpful staff as well as your wonderful cook (forgot to write in her comments book but you can add this "some of the best casseroles ever").

Brian, Mike, Zenke, Cheeto and the rest of staff, thank you for pulling it all together--especially with the tournament stuff that I know isn't easy to wrangle or keep track of.

Holy crap cannot agree with this enough.

Big ol' +1 to this. All of the staff was amazing. Thank you so much for putting this all together.

I had a fantastic time this weekend! It was a lot of fun putting faces to all of the forum names and voices, and all of the sig' others and friends of friends were very cool. You guys are all so nice! Weirdos.

I popped my board game cherry and button mashed my way to several fighting game victories. Cards Against Humanity with 12 people is pretty ridiculous. The food was great, the castle was amazingly cool, and Complex was kind enough to stop snoring for long enough to let me get a little bit of sleep

Surely surprising to no one, I had the most fun playing JS Joust.

Thin_J wrote:

Have a little extra fun (and an extra beer or two or three) for me people.

I DID IT FOR THIN J HOUSE REX REPRESENT

I'm just glad Oily's stacked house didn't manage to win.

NSMike wrote:

I'm just glad Oily's stacked house didn't manage to win.

Stacked higher than a Jenga tower the second before it collapses.

I'll get my pictures in before the rush. My iPod didn't care for the mood lighting in the castle, so my apologies for the hazy indoor pics.

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8056/8132321119_d139cea6b9.jpg)
Ravenwood Castle

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8329/8132321021_901dd947d0.jpg)
Outdoor Chess

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8050/8132320929_b15b4004ca.jpg)
The Village

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8324/8132321185_9a70151848.jpg)
The Library - our roleplaying venue

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8471/8132345958_19fd693fe8.jpg)
The view from the King Arthur Suite

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8043/8132320723_40f65f10c4.jpg)
Don't blink

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8325/8132321631_2a2bbf9da9_n.jpg)
Part of the Great Hall

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8468/8132345850_50e4069a83_n.jpg)
The Artemis Bridge Simulator rig, off the Great Hall (note: Captain Chen [TheBluePaladin] at the helm - leader of the winning Artemis Bridge crew)

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8183/8132347102_88be3758e8_n.jpg)
The Artemis bridge at night (note: the game-linked LED lighting - blue means the shields must be up)

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8186/8132346840_32658bb1cb_n.jpg)
Lasherthecat watches Strangeblades and Kilanash in the Quarter Circle Codpiece Punch Fighting Tournament

IMAGE(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8194/8132321361_b86004279b_n.jpg)
Obirano, LupusUmbrus, and SuperDave watch quixotic.June and Dyni compete in the Quarter Circle Codpiece Punch Fighting Tournament

Just got home about an hour ago and now that I'm finally settled back in I just wanted to stop by and thank everyone for an awesome weekend. Things have been about 3 clicks past stressful for me lately and having a weekend to get away, be a huge nerd, and meet some cool people was just what the doctor ordered. Big thanks to SuperDave and quixotic.June for being two friendly and familiar faces in a crowd of near strangers, CptDomano for having the presence of mind to bring a cot so we didn't have to cuddle, DannyBoy for being a fellow Cylon and captain of industry, and to Oily (sorry I murdered you), NSMike all the Pencon and Ravenwood staff for being awesome and helpful and making the whole thing happen.

At home now and unwinding with the girls, and will do a longer shout-out post later - but I had a wonderful time. This was the first time I went to anything like this, and everyone I met was just awesome. Can't wait until next year.

Did the band play? Or was it just too much ...

rabbit wrote:

Did the band play? Or was it just too much ...

We did a little. Me, SuperDave, and DannyBoy attempted a few songs. It was a good learning experience for next time.

Radical Ans wrote:
rabbit wrote:

Did the band play? Or was it just too much ...

We did a little. Me, SuperDave, and DannyBoy attempted a few songs. It was a good learning experience for next time.

Yeah. We had everything, but I couldn't run a tight enough ship. I was only comfortable playing and singing with one song and I couldn't perform consistently enough so that everyone could follow. A bit of a wake-up call that I need to put more time into guitar and not just drums, and that I should practice singing and playing a bit more because I'm almost there. We have a whole year until the next one of these and I have a bunch of ideas on how we can make this a solid event.

SuperDave wrote:
Radical Ans wrote:
rabbit wrote:

Did the band play? Or was it just too much ...

We did a little. Me, SuperDave, and DannyBoy attempted a few songs. It was a good learning experience for next time.

Yeah. We had everything, but I couldn't run a tight enough ship. I was only comfortable playing and singing with one song and I couldn't perform consistently enough so that everyone could follow. A bit of a wake-up call that I need to put more time into guitar and not just drums, and that I should practice singing and playing a bit more because I'm almost there. We have a whole year until the next one of these and I have a bunch of ideas on how we can make this a solid event.

I was totally unprepared, sorry Dave.

Get a camera crew, a producer, and Phish, Lupus and Minarchist, and you could have a successful Rate My Homebrew reality TV show.