Umbral Echoes Blog

I’ve been wanting a tattoo for over 5 years, and tonight I finally got it done. I knew I wanted something involving a yin yang — cliché as it might be. The struggle between opposing forces, seeking balance, is a pretty key thing in my life, as are some of the Asian philosophies. Though I do not claim any of the associated religions as my own, I like Buddhist and Taoist philosophies, and even some Confucianist tenets.

However, I didn’t want it to be a standard yin yang — I wanted it to be something a little more me. My initial thought, back in college, was to get it done in binary, with one side (white) being a bunch of tiny zeroes, and the other being a bunch of tiny ones. That idea seemed cool for all of maybe a year, then I thought better of it.

I got the tattoo done by Joe Vegas at 13 Roses. I originally wanted it to be done by a guy named Soul, but by the time I got off my ass and went there, Soul had moved on. So after looking at the artists at 13 Roses, and some other local artists, I settled on Joe Vegas because I wanted it to be Asian-themed, and he does some amazing work along those lines.

Blue described getting a tattoo as like a more intense version of the violet wand. I can definitely see the comparison. Especially with the noise it makes, which is similar(-ish). And it hurt, but the pain was far from unbearable. It did feel like someone was vibrating something sharp against my skin, but it didn’t actually feel like the skin was being pierced. Honestly, the near-constant wiping away of ink (and occasionally blood) was more uncomfortable than the needle.

I really like this piece. I waffled a bit after the initial consultation — I also really like tribal tattoos, and could maybe pull off the same general theme of conflict/balance through that. But in the end, I decided to go with the idea that was in my head for nearly a decade. Still might do something tribal at some point,maybe even try to do a piece around my existing one and blend the two. Or maybe not. If I do another piece, I want it to be something that’s stuck in my brain like this one has (though maybe not for so many years). Something I know I’ll be proud to have on my body for the rest of my life.

Part of the reason for my pause in posts has been that at some point my site got hacked. It was probably due to an installation of an old bit of software that had a security flaw — I had a lot of stuff installed that I never really kept up with. In any case, I’ve wiped my entire site and recreated it, which was a bit of effort. I think I’ve still got the Livejournal crossposting working correctly, so this will be a test of that too.

In other news, I’m looking at buying a second home in Decatur. Found a deal that seemed too good to be true, but on a lark I contacted Rich Murray, a friend of mine who happens to be a kick-ass realtor. He said that it’s a short-sell, and normally at the dirt-cheap price it’s listed at the bank wouldn’t accept it, except in this case a nearly identical property sold for the same asking price.

However, there is a big bureaucratic hurtle: it has to be owner-occupied. I would actually like to rent out my house and move in there, but that’s irrelevant; when working up the loan, they will look at the mortgage amount on both properties and assume I’ll be living in the more expensive one, which is my house (by far). The value of both properties is actually about the same, but the mortgage is far different — my house has gone down in value a lot since I bought it.

So, it’s unlikely this will go through. I’m not getting my hopes up too much, and trying to remind myself that if it does go through it’ll be a pain to move and find someone to rent out my house, not to mention act as a landlord (though I could always have a third party deal with all of that). But man, this is the exact area I want to be in Atlanta, so I am still going to try my damndest.

So after the fiasco of the previous night, you'd think I would stay in and sleep it off, right? Fucking wrong. 4 hours of sleep, then up, shower, and down to the registration area, and shortly thereafter to a Changeling the Lost game run by The Wrecking Crew. I feel the need to put in a few notes here.

First, I was on the design team for the CtL corebook. However, I had never actually played the game or even managed to read all the way through the book, as ironic as that is. So I was interested to see what the final product ended up being like.

Second, The Wrecking Crew is awesome. They run tabletop games for White Wolf products at all sorts of conventions. Back in the day they used to help White Wolf with the setup and breakdown of their booths at said conventions, too. They are not only rabid fans, but they are very good at what they do. So I was doubly excited to play in this game.

Third, I was still vaguely nauseas, hadn't eaten since 3pm the previous day, and hadn't even had any water that morning. But I am not a little bitch, and I was determined to get my game on. So instead of doing the intelligent thing and saying, "Hey guys, give me 5 minutes to go get a bottle of water," I toughed through it. HTFU.

–Begin geeky game reminiscing–

The game had pregens, I was the last to the table but I found a great character: an Autumn Court librarian. Autumn Court changelings are the creepy ones. The girl running the game left the specifics to us, so I described him as a spindly man in his late 40s with straight, almost dead-looking black hair that was about chin-length, who had the musty smell of old books. He had sunken eyes, wore a moth-ridden tweed jacket, ivory button-down shirt, and brown corduroy pants. Also, from time to time a spider or two would skitter out from the hair hanging at his neck, scamper across his neck or face, and disappear on the other side.

His mein (how he looks to other changelings) was much the same, except instead of eyes he had black pits that seemed to suck in the light, features even more gaunt to the point of looking skeletal, and elongated teeth that were all sharp canines.

The basic plot was that the group of us "came to" on a dock with a wooden crate in front of us, and a person, with no memories of the previous 24 hours. The person was contractually bound not to tell us anything. My character snooped and sniffed around, and figured that there was most likely a dead body in there. Around that time, a car drove up and we were shot at. My character, not being a fighter, hid and used his powers to freak out the gunmen — or at least one of them.

We gain control of the situation, find out who hired them, then go up the chain to find out who hired that person to hire them, find out who that person was working for. It was basically a big court plot to make it look like the Autumn Court queen was abducting/killing the other three courts' queens, the plot lead by someone who hoped to take her place, and was working with the True Fae (bad, bad news) to do so. We blew up the would-be queen, I did some research on the fae and found her weakness (she is known as the Weeping Willow, and can't attack anyone that's crying), and the local changelings banded together to smack her down.

Behind the scenes, apparently we were hired by the current Autumn queen to investigate the disappearances.  I'd thought maybe we were the ones that had caused them, since we did "wake up" in front of a box with a dead body in it that I was pretty sure was one of the other queens, after all.

–End geeky game reminiscing–

After that, Lauren, Charles Bailey, and I went to grab brunch. I wanted some gumbo (it's New Orleans after all, and I love me some cajun food), so on the advice of friends we went to Gumbo Shop. Yes, it's a gumbo place called Gumbo Shop. It was pretty good, except that they put a crab claw in mine and there were little bits of it in the gumbo itself that I had to spit out from time to time. I found them, of course, by crunching down on them with my teeth, which was none too pleasant.

Then we went to a gelato place right around the corner, and it was divine. Lauren and I got some horchata gelato. They had some single malt Glenlivet gelato that I really wanted, but thought might be a bad idea after the previous night's debacle.

We helped Charles find a geocaching thing, then I caught the tail end of an artist panel and we went out to eat again.

What? I have a tapeworm to feed, you know. Or a hollow leg to fill. Or both.

We really wanted to check out The Green Goddess, since it seems to have great Yelp reviews and some of our friends raved about it. By "we wanted to go" I mostly mean that I did, and Lauren grumbled about it. Turns out, it was too packed anyway — it is but a tiny place, not capable of handling even the runoff of the crowds that the convention brought. So we ended up at House of Blues, where I had some shrimp and catfish creole. Though we had to wait a long time to get our food, it was very tasty, and the waitress was awesomely nice as well. I will definitely go back there whenever I'm next in the area.

Damnit, even writing about this is making me hungry. Maybe if I lived in New Orleans I'd actually gain a few pounds.

That night there was a… well, cocktail party is the best way I can think to describe it, at the Blue Room downstairs. CCP was giving the fans a chance to talk to some of the game developers, and have some nice snacks and free booze while they were at it.

This seemed to translate to "OMGfreebooze!!!!" and instead of talking to the developers, everyone seemed to go straight for the two bars, resulting in about a 45 minute wait to get drinks. I chatted some with Rich Thomas, Bill Bridges, and others before deciding to move along to bed.

Thus ended day 2. Not terribly exciting, but it involved good food, and the next day was the birthday party, so I knew adventure awaited. And indeed it did, but more on that in the next installment.

I decided to spend my 30th birthday with the White Wolf/CCP crew at The Grand Masquerade in New Orleans this year. And man was it a blast.  I had planned to do this in one post, but realized that would be a gargantuan post, so I'll do this piecemeal. So…

Day 1: Wednesday

Lauren and I drove down, got stuck behind a wreck on I-10 for over an hour, and checked in to The Roosevelt around 11. The early day was busy with work and I didn't think to eat, so the only meal I had was an Arby's meal around 3pm. This will be important in a little bit.

The hotel was… well, "fucking amazing" doesn't cover it. Opulent, gorgeous, refined, luxurious, and then some. I booked a suite, and I'm damn glad I did — not because the normal rooms are bad (they're also amazing), but the suites are that fucking sweet. Yeah, I just said that. A picture of the foyer is above, and the main bedroom is below.After having been cooped up in the car for so long, I was ready to explore. Lauren, having had to get up at 3am that morning, understandably wanted some sleep.  So, off I went to Bourbon Street alone.

Are you starting to see where that "only ate once that day" might come into play?

So I wander down Bourbon St. and find that it's pretty much exactly as I'd expected: every single establishment is either a bar, a bar with food (for some reason, they seem to think that margaritas and pizza go together as well as peanut butter and chocolate), or a strip club. None seemed to stand out until I saw a place that purported to have the most beers on Bourbon St. So I sat down and had myself an Arrogant Bastard (shut up, just shut up — it's a tasty beer!)… which ended up being $10.50. Leave it to me to find the only expensive alcohol on Bourbon St.

As I was finishing my tres-expensive beer, I got texts from some of the White Wolf crew telling me to join them at karaoke. I had a hard time figuring it out, since most of them were too drunk to correctly relay the name, but eventually figured it out to be the Cat's Meow. So I head that way, already tipsy from my one pint of high-grav beer.

I arrive to what I expect: lots of drunken White Wolf people, having pretty much taken over the place. Craig recommends the Hurricanes, I go get one. It is a $7.50 bucket of rum. Sweet, sweet rum. I take one sip and know this is dangerous. I go do the social butterfly thing, and after talking to Chris McDonough and giving him some completely heterosexual man-hugs, I look over to find my drink… stolen. For the first time in my life, I had my drink stolen. I felt robbed, I felt raped, I felt… okay well seriously I was only slightly annoyed.

"What the fuck?! Son of a…. well fuck it, they're only $7.50."

I should have taken the drink being stolen as a sign to stop. But I was only halfway through it, and I'm not a quitter. So I manned up and got another Huge Bucket of Rum^TM.  Remember how I said I'd only eaten once?  Yeah.

I don't remember a lot after that, other than stumbling home, buying Lauren a hot dog and having a bite of it myself, and then a few hours worshiping the porcelain goddess. At one point I was seriously wondering if I had alcohol poisoning. But I made it through, and around 5am went into restful slumber. Or to put it another way, I passed the fuck out.

Thus ended Day 1 of my grand adventure in New Orleans.

This post is mostly to get some things off my chest about the situation with my father, and also to let everyone know what's happened and how things are going. More important points in bold, for those who just want the bullet points.

The History

My father is an alcoholic. Has been for most of his life. But the story starts even before that. His father was also an alcoholic. He would work long hours at BF Goodrich, come home, have dinner, then drink. Grandpa didn't drink to get drunk; he drank to pass out. My father has told stories like once when playing cards with grandpa when he was a kid, granpda just passed out in the middle of it.

Dad also became an alcoholic. I'm not sure when he started drinking, but I do know that it was before I was born. For years he controlled it pretty well, but then it seemed to get out of hand. His second wife divorced him because of it, but it didn't get really bad until grandpa died. Not long after that, dad spiraled downward pretty fast. So far that grandma and one of his sisters put him in the hospital and forced him to take Antabuse. My memory is honestly a bit hazy, but I recall him being in and out a few times before he decided he wanted to get better. For the next 10 years, he kept his sobriety.

Recent News

But for the past 6-7 years, my dad has again been losing the battle with alcohol. I think it started when I moved to Atlanta. Part of me can't help but feel at cause, but the rational side of me knows that it's not my responsibility to be around to keep dad sober. He had some ups and downs, at one point had 2 years sobriety, but then began the downward spiral again. His alcoholism is compounded by depression and anxiety issues, as well as sleeplessness (he uses the "I drink so I can sleep" excuse that grandpa did). He also got involved with crack-cocaine, which would be more worrying to me than the alcohol if the alcohol issue weren't life-threateningly bad. Dad's AA friend Jeff started getting in touch with me to let me know when things got bad.

A few weeks ago, things got really bad. Dad called into work for an entire week, and during that time pretty much subsisted on beer alone. If you've seen Leaving Las Vegas, it was a lot like that. Only in real life, it's a lot more messy. Jeff said that when he went in to check on my dad (I'd given him a key to dad's house some time ago), he found him unconscious naked on the couch, with beer cans covering the floor, and fecal matter all over the kitchen floor, living room, hallway, and bathroom.

It was never this bad. The next day Jeff roused my dad so that he could talk to me on the phone. Previous to this, dad had always said that he just wanted to be numb, but that he didn't want to die. This time he told me, "I just don't want to live any more."

The Saga

That was all it took. The next day I drove up to Louisville and took out a mental inquest warrant on my father. That is a warrant saying that he is a danger to himself or others due to a mental illness. Alcoholism is considered a "voluntary mental illness" so warrants are only issued in cases where people are suicidal, homicidal, etc.

The warrant was completed that night, and within 45 minutes the police were on my father's doorstep. My father's condition was so bad (a few of the cops uttered such phrases as "holy mother of god") that they called an ambulance for him, which took him to the ER in the hospital. After they got him in stable condition (which took about 24 hours), they moved him to the psychiatric ward. The psych ward upheld the mental inquest, and sent him along to a rehab facility.

It took dad almost 2 weeks to completely sober up and come out of the mental fog. The facility he was at is supposed to be one of the best in the region (dad mentioned people from a few states away being there), and his therapist/social worker Maria seemed to be very experienced and skilled with people in dad's situation (though they said he was among the worst that they had to deal with). She knew exactly the sorts of pitfalls that he would face after coming out of rehab, and wanted to prepare him for those.

I could probably write several thousand words about this, but to sum up, dad wants to get better. At least, he says he does, and I hope that's true. The doctor told him that he doesn't have another run like that in him — if he goes back to drinking, he will die. He's currently in a transitional living house, supervised 24/7 but the guys in the house go out to a few meetings a day and have other scheduled activities, so it's a little more freedom than the intensive inpatient ward. They're basically teaching dad how to live sober again. When alcoholics get to the point my father did, they forget what it is they love in life. Their life becomes a cycle of drink, sleep, work. So they are going to teach my dad how to break that cycle, and form new habits of living. Dad also volunteered to go on Antabuse, which I think is a great sign.

He's been keeping in touch with me every day. There were (and to some extent, still are) concerns about his work,but I think everything will be fine there. He has a medical doctor saying that he needs to be under this care, and his work has a strong union, so I doubt that anything bad will come of it. Then again, they did fire him for going into treatment a decade and a half ago due to some loophole they have where you can't get more than one instance of temporary disability for the same mental illness. But he fought the man, and actually won that one after an 8-year-long battle.

Things are looking up. Let's hope they stay that way. My friends have all been very supportive, and I am truly blessed to have the great people in my life that I do.

Idea for a next post: With my parents, how did I end up not completely screwed up? Or am I?

I was supposed to be in… well, Paris right now. We had scheduled a work trip to London, Paris, Toulouse, and Madrid from the 15th through the 24th. However, the volcano gods of Iceland had different plans. By the way, have you seen some of these pictures? They’re surreal.

Because London was shut down, I had them reroute me to France, but the next available flight there wasn’t until the next day. So I got stuck in Chicago overnight, but that was actually sort of fun since I got to see a couple of friends that I’d not seen since GenCon, Alix and Mark, and got to meet both Alix’s husband John and her good friend Dave. Alix and John were nice enough to put me up for the night, and there was much drinking of beer and geeky revelry (my favorite kind!). I even helped Alix play Magic, which I haven’t touched in… man, probably about 8 years now.

Anyway, this might work out for the better anyway; we’re attempting to reschedule for June, so the weather will be much better. In the previous trip, half of it was screwed up due to mis-schedulings, and we can avoid that this time around. Also, my Hotwire-fu failed and we ended up getting a hotel in London that was a mile from the tube — definitely suboptimal. I’m not even sure if we’ll hit London the next time around, since that was a somewhat last-minute change to hit a wargaming convention anyway (which we learned was actually the next weekend). I hope we’ll be able hit it next time, and on a Saturday since there’s apparently some great goth club action in London on Saturday nights.

On the downside, American Airlines lost track of my luggage. There were some expensive articles of clothing in there, the total value of everything in the four-digit range. I can’t really blame them too much, since the cancelled European flights caused all sorts of chaos. On the upside, as of today they finally found the luggage and it’s on its way back to me.

Today I am proud to call this neighborhood my home.

Image from Hal Bergman Photography

This morning I had to take Kayla to the veterinary surgeon for a follow-up.  On my way home, Lauren calls me telling me someone knocked on the door, that she didn’t answer because she was still in bed, and then she heard some weird sounds. I was about 15 minutes from home at this point, so I told her I’d be right there. Thought maybe it was just some kids fucking around.

I pull into my subdivision to see 3 cop cars near my house, and some neighbors out in the cul de sac gathered with baseball bats.  Apparently someone had tried to break into my house while I was gone. Two someones, in fact. But mine wasn’t the first house they went to. They had gone to my neighbor on the left before that, knocked on the door, and he said that when he answered they seemed surprised, then asked if he needed his lawn mowed. They obviously had no lawn mower, so he was suspicious. Then they came to my house, knocked on the door, and when no one answered, they went to the door attached to the garage and proceeded to attempt to kick it in.

I say “attempt” because they didn’t manage to get it open — it broke part of the frame but caught on the door jamb, since the frame was solid wood (as opposed to compressed wood, which most more recent houses use). Meanwhile, my neighbor Devon is calling the cops, and then coming out to ask the guys what the hell they’re doing, along with another neighbor from the other side of my house, who is wielding a baseball bat. The would-be thieves, predictably, get the hell out of dodge. Or try to.

Apparently, my neighborhood doesn’t take well to thieves, because my neighbors gave chase. Before long, several people in the neighborhood were attempting to corral these jerks, and within a couple of minutes the cops were there. Living within 2 miles of a police station has some benefits. The neighbors and cops coordinated, and the cops took the thieves into custody.

Yes, you read correctly. The police were called and actually caught the criminals. That never happens.

These fuckers are now behind bars. I will have to replace the door, but I was considering doing that anyway (it’s in a bad spot that gets a lot of moisture and was in crappy condition). Nothing was stolen, no one was hurt. I will be following up with the police to make sure that these bastards get what’s coming to them. You do not scare my girl, or fuck with my house. You certainly do not do both.

So, fair warning to all would-be thieves: choose another neighborhood. The only thing you will find here is epic fail.

In late April (edit: Yes, April — I originally said August, but it is April), my boss is going to Europe to talk to some European publishers. I will be coming with him to answer tech questions.

The plan is to fly into London, take a train to Paris, train to Toulouse, train to Madrid, then fly back home. The trip will last about 10 days total, and with nearly 5 days of that being taken up with flying/trains, that doesn’t leave much time to spare for fun stuff and sightseeing. But, we will do our best to squeeze some in, and I will post pictures as I can.

I didn’t go to a single damn panel this year. There was lots of partying, drinking, and… well, that sort of thing.

We stayed in the Hyatt this year, and I have to say that having a balcony is very awesome. It was good for socializing so that everyone wasn’t in one loud heap, and also let the smokers go out to smoke without having to leave the room. I have heard good things about the Westin though, and from a brief stint there trying to find a room party (and failing), it looked to be quite a nice hotel. So perhaps I’ll have to have a look at their rooms and prices for next year. Would also be nice not having to deal with the convention elevators. This year the Hyatt updated their elevators I think though, because when we had a full load it went straight to the bottom floor instead of stopping on every single floor as in years past. Made the elevator wait time more like 15 minutes instead of 30-45 minutes.

Sean doing body shots off of Cary

I didn’t really expect my room to be a party room, but these things happen. I could not have predicted some of the things that happened, as seen to the right, but everyone had fun. 🙂 I was very glad to see my GenCon friends Daniel (aka Frodo) and Lia there, as well as Stephanie and Shawn, and Kirstie and Shaun, and Corinne and Sean and… holy crap, I know too damn many of those Sean guys, and every damn one of them spells it differently! Sean Fannon was holding the Court of Bedlam, in which I was bequeathed the Count of Carousing, and also assistant barkeep. I mixed some drinks, and they were… well, let’s just say stronger than I intended. However, that was perfect for the Court. These are not amateur drinkers. They like their vodka crans to taste like vodka with a hint of cranberry.

I think the most memorable night was MC Chris’s birthday party on Sunday night. I had just the right amount of booze for a good buzz, the atmosphere was very high-energy, I saw an old friend from Colorado, hung out with Loryn and other good friends, and afterwards my friend DJ Catt Ninetails spun some 80’s music, and there was impromptu dancing by attractive women on stage. I’m a sucker for cute dancers, especially if they’re in thongs.

I won’t bore you with the mundane details, but some other random highlights include my (well technically, Loryn’s) luggage breaking due to being overloaded with booze, condom balloons, and finding that there is a leather clothing maker about 1/2 mile from where I live.  Also, chicks kissing.  Can you dig it?  I said, “CAN YOU DIG IT?!”  10 movie geek points if you get the reference without doing a web search.

Yes, I hardly blog any more.  Just don’t have the drive — mostly it’s my own OCD that demands I include various pictures and so forth, which honestly just takes a lot of time.  However, a friend asked if I had blogged about GenCon, and maybe the other two of you who read this might like to see some pictures and hear about it too.  So I blog.

Dicebagging

This year GenCon was a little different for me.  In previous years, I’d gone with Lydia and Dustin, and awesomeness ensued.  The picture at left has a brief story behind it, for example.  First night of GenCon, and our room was making a ruckus.  A random passer-by (who we now know as Frank) with an amazing beard and mustache popped his head in and said, “You people sound like you’re having fun; mind if I join in?”  Of course we invited him in.  At some point a few minutes thereafter, someone (I think it was Frank, but I can’t remember for sure) suggested the idea of dicebagging.  Like the geek version of teabagging, you see.  I jumped up, and proceeded to dicebag the hell out of Lydia — what a great sport she is!

This is just one example, and Lydia and Dustin seemed to be co-catalysts to many fun and zany moments such as this.  This year, neither were there — Lydia because she is doing noble things with the Peace Corps in Swaziland, and Dustin due to monetary issues.  There were other awesome cohorts there, sharing hotel space, but they tend to do their own thing, as do I, and our paths cross at irregular intervals.

So, lacking my Dustin and Lydia, I did more work-oriented things this year.  There were several sushi dinners, and things of that nature, but I’ll just hit the notable points.

Thursday night was BeerCon (yes, I said BeerCon), hosted by OneBookShelf and Goodman Games, held at The Slippery Noodle.  On the downside, I had to miss True Dungeon to do it.  there was a small SNAFU at the door — apparently it was a blues night with a cover charge, whcih caused some confusion.  Also, the BeerCon event was quite popular, and the downstairs room we were in was packed to the gills, and pretty noisy.  On the good side, there were cool people there, and I got to have a few drinks on the company (as did everyone else).  Talked to Eddy Webb at White Wolf, my coworker Sean Fannon — no wait, that’s Sean Patrick Fannon.  He really should introduce himself that way, a la James Bond.  “Sean Fannon.  Sean Patrick Fannon, at your service.”

Brave New World concert

Friday night was the Brave New World concert hosted by Reactor 88 Studios and Matt Forbeck, featuring some video previews of the movie and a live performance by Makeshift Prodigy.  The band was decent, but the lead singer actually had a pretty good set of pipes (in my admittedly unprofessional opinion).  After that there was a get-together at Subterra Lounge.  It was a trendy club, pretty small, but the drinks weren’t too expensive, and the bartender was good about getting drinks.  For me, anyway — it helps to tip well. 🙂  Got to talk to some old acquaintances, like Will Hindmarch, former Vampire developer for White Wolf.  He’s doing some independent projects right now, which seem to be getting a fair amount of traction.

After that, we (my boss, Will, and a few others) went and had some drinks at a cigar and scotch bar with the White Wolf crew.  I had some Oban, which is a single malt scotch that I remember being very smooth.  What I was given at this place did not taste smooth, to the extent that I wondered if it was Oban at all.  It tasted more like a Jameson, or maybe even Laphroaig, but definitely not Oban.  I managed to pace myself to avoid drunkenness at least.

Here you might note that so far, I haven’t mentioned playing any games, or anything other than drinking or carousing.  Well, that’s because I pretty much drank and caroused all weekend long.  I played one game, the card game Munchkin, on Saturday for the first time ever.  That was the only gaming I did.  However, that was quite fun, and I got some random swag from it due to a passing-by staff member who was giving swag to whomever was currently winning games.  I played with hotel room-mate Mark, and his friends Paul and Alix.  We had lots of fun with it, though we didn’t have long because of the weekend’s big event: the White Wolf party.

Alix and Me

Yes, the White Wolf party.  The highlight of GenCon.  The night where the drinks are free, the hot goths are out, and inhibitions are hiding in the corner curled up into a little ball.  Within the first five minutes I was groped, and had my ass critiqued by a group of people whose goal in the night was to get their friend laid.  I try to stay away from former coworkers though.  Except Chris McDonough.  If you’re reading this Chris, you know I always reserve the manlove for you.

The club had two floors, various beds and sofas, and a dance floor on each level pumping the goth/industrial/new wave/whatever.  I think I’m developing a tolerance to Captain and Coke, because after 5 of them (not lightly poured, either) in fairly quick succession, I was barely feeling buzzed.  I mingled, drank, and dragged Alix onto the dance floor.  Okay, she was willing, but it sounds better if I say I dragged her onto the dance floor.  Caveman style.  Our friend Mark was apparently having a rough night, but I’ll be damned if I let anyone not have fun around me, and Alix and I managed to cheer him up some.  Kung Fu makes everyone happy, I’m just sayin’.  I also forced Paul to chug water.  He doesn’t drink, he is skinnier than I am, and he was tore up.  I knew he’d be hating himself the next day, and sure enough, I got some profuse thanks for practically forcing the water down his throat.

Mark and Cate

Overall this year’s party was more tame than in previous years.  There was no impromptu photo shoot like last year, wherein I was told to get my ass over there, take off my shirt, and pose with random goth girl.  There were no antics with kickballs and street signs that had been drunkenly torn up out of the street, nor breaking into hotel swimming pools and proceeding to breaking the pool.  There was, however, an afterparty for a limited number of people in the penthouse suite at the Omni, which was fun but crowded.  A couple of friends I brought with me designated themselves as bartenders, and apparently were very well-liked for that — also, they got a fair chunk of change in tips.  Broken bottles notwithstanding.  The suite was well-stocked with alcohol and mixers; these people are professionals.  Nothing of note really happened there, other than it being packed like sardines, and security being called for the noise disturbance and breaking up the party.  Oscar Garza has a psychic sense about these things — a few minutes before the pigs came, he said, “I’m leaving before the police get here.”

Sunday, as per usual, was pretty low-key.  People leaving early, checking out of hotels, some farewell dinners and so forth.  It was sad to say goodbye to friends both old and new, but several of them will be at DragonCon.  And that, my friends, is where the real party is at.

Featuring our beloved PhotoGnome.