Smile! You're On CandidGamera.

A week from today, I'll be on my way to Columbus, Ohio, for the Origins Game Fair. This will be my 14th outing to the convention, having missed only one since 1998's. I think it'll be my sixth time attending the Smithee Awards - but I'm fuzzier on that count.

I wish I could get my gaming group to the convention for the Smithees, at least - we've been having loads of fun with our 'bad movie nights', so I think they'd love the show, but most of my players can't afford to go. C'est la vie. Perhaps someday.

I signed up for both the Smithee Awards - that celebration of bad-movie-awesomeness, and the Meta-Mega-Smithees - the quintuple-strength edition that occurs once every five years. That does block off a lot of prime gaming time, but it's worth it! I always have a blast and come back with a list of bad movies that I have to see in their entirety. Where else would I have learned of the Guns of El Chupacabra?

I'm also in two introductory, models-provided sessions of Warhammer 40K. Since I'm still learning the game, the practice will be helpful, to say the least.

Another week, almost done. Sweet.

My birthday comes soon. One week from Sunday. Planning dinner out with some friends, that's about it.

I need to sit down and go through the Origins events list and pick some stuff. Maybe I can get to that this weekend.

So once Origins changes dates (starting next year, it'll be near Memorial Day Weekend) maybe I can actually hit some other conventions, sometimes. Especially those near the end of Summer or beginning of Fall. I have a kind of 'wish list' of conventions I'd like to see once, mostly comic related, but not all of them.

GenCon - the biggest gaming convention in the land.
DragonCon - the biggest science fiction and fantasy convention.
Emerald City Comic-Con - Because Seattle is awesome.
Penny Arcade Expo - Did I mention Seattle is awesome?
San Diego Comic-Con - It's big.
New York City Comic-Con - Also big. Also want to see New York.
Heroes Con - Because about half the people I know seem to live in North Carolina.

There's also the Pittsburgh Comic-Con, which I haven't done yet because I'm basically lazy. There are a couple of WV Cons - TsubasaCon for anime, and CharCon for gaming.. haven't made the effort to check them out either, regrettably.

I get loads of vacation time each year, so getting out of work to get to these places is generally not a problem - it's the travel and hotel expenses that make them tougher to commit to. That and the lazy thing.

I wonder if there's a unified 'convention calendar' somewhere? Wikipedia has good lists of cons, but they're not really organized usefully. There should be a sortable calendar of nerd-cons.

• Anime
  
• Comics
  
• Gaming
  
• Multi-Genre
  
• Sci-Fi, which does allow you to sort the list by date, at least.

Event registration opens in 40 minutes, so I'm doing my final check over of the latest version of the event list.

I'm back, me hearties.

Origins was full of firsts this year. It was the first time I left carrying less cargo than when I came in, thanks to the Magic sales. The first time I participated in the auction - which, due to poor attendance at the auction and bad timing, wasn't as profitable as I'd hoped. It was the first time I made a profit at the convention. The first time I took along my digital camera and didn't take any pictures. The first time I had three events canceled.

I'll be doing full convention write-ups on my nerd-blog, as previously indicated.

40 of my Magic Cards have been sold along to another collector, for a tidy sum. This included some of the marquee items, but I doubt Troll and Toad would be paying top dollar anyway. Goodbye, Tolarian Academy. Goodbye, Volcanic Island and Taiga. Goodbye, Force of Will. I still have Sol Ring, Wheel of Fortune, Savannah, Tarmogoyf, and the Maze of Ith as headliners.

The Black Lotus has been registered for auction. I set a minimum price of $600. If it goes for that, I will more than double what I paid for it and that'll pay for my convention costs. Anything above that amount is gravy. I expect at least $800. I'm hoping for at least $1000. If for some bizarre reason, it doesn't sell, then I can eBay it.

Event Registration opens tomorrow - the Tabletop/Board Games part, anyway. At Noon. I must prepare! There will be chaos and brimstone and fire, and only the ready shall survive!

On the other hand, it could go much more smoothly than last year. Here's hoping. I have wisely left large gaps Friday and Saturday afternoon for shopping and rest. And of course, I've got the Smithees penciled in!

It's always nice to do the birthday dinner thing - it's rare for me to have a two and a half hour conversation. I did stop at GameStop beforehand, though, and expanded the scope of my Pokemon addiction to Pokemon LeafGreen. This may become a problem.

Spent the rest of my time last night catching up on things and watching some episodes of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam - a random two-disk volume of that series that I'd picked up from Vintage Video a while back. I can see why fans sometimes complain about the localization job done for it.

Tonight - Iron Man 2. Look at Origins events. Tomorrow - get up too early and get truck maintenance done. Handle laundry and groceries. Possible session of one of my RPG campaigns.

Just another Origins story, belatedly.

So I was playing Scion. It's a game of demigods, and for that session, it had been shifted slightly to make a workable Golden Age Superhero game. We had an Archer, a Woman Warrior, a Speedster, an Elemental, an Investigator, and me - the Brick. My character was the Blue Marvel, super-strong and super-tough. Not especially perceptive - I failed several Notice rolls, but whatever I did see, I could pound.

It was a fun session - the GM had been rolling poorly for the femme fatale villain we first encountered - with the repeated refrain of 'Worst. Spy. Ever.' As she was instantly spotted, and quickly defeated. We got to save the Liberty Bell from saboteurs.

("Oh no, we're too late! They've already damaged the bell!")

I got to hurl a bomb away from innocent bystanders, who mistook it for fireworks.

The basic premise was that Nazi superhuman spies were collecting important American artifacts to give Hitler an occult advantage - and for one more sinister purpose revealed in the climax. (It involved a giant mystic robot.)

We were chasing one crook who'd stolen the letters from an antique printing press - perhaps the one that pritned the first Poor Richard's Almanac? Not sure. When tripped up, he fell, spilling some of the letters.

Now, the GM specified he spilled 11 letters. And we needed a clue as to the final target of the Nazi spies. My brain goes 'A-ha! Anagram time.' Analogous to a casting of runes. The GM started giving the player nearest him a list of what letters spilled, but he'd lost his notes and was doing it from memory.

GM : ' There's a W, a Y, another Y, an I, an O, another I .. no, wait. One I. Hang on..'

So he pauses to work out which letters are there. And starts over, giving them out again.

Me : 'I think you'll need a C.'

The GM looks at me, half-grinning, and thanks me, adding a C in the list he's rattling off. The other players look at me like I've grown a second head.

Me : 'I have an inkling. It's an anagram.'

They prod me to go on.

Me : 'It's New York City.'

Because, honestly, 11 letter destination with a W and two Y's? Not that many with notable ties to American history. We had goodly fun cracking wise about the unobservant Blue Marvel solving anagrams with his grandmother as a child, though.