I woke up early then slept in till 9 checking the Twitter feed there was still space at the main hall so I headed over. I joined the queue and waited and after a few hours got into the place for the PA make a strip panel. I got the chance to sit in the balcony this time so I gave it a go it wasn’t a bad place to sit but relatively speaking I think I would have been closer in the main hall.
The panel took the form of first showing us lots of adverts for two worlds 2 with some chap called Sordahan (Who since no one played Two Worlds is a unknown) looking for another job rather than lackey to the big evil. Some of them were moderately amusing but mostly it was just filler while they stacked 2000 geeks into a hall that usually hosts the Seattle symphony, take that culture!
Anyway eventually Jerry and Mike emerged from the lands of spells and fairies then began their mystic craft. This basically had Jerry type out the comic while insulting Mike and then they switched places and Mike drew the thing. The comic was someone comming for a signing and then Gabe saying we only have three rules we’ll sign anything so long as it doesn’t bite burn or sting. The next panel is some guy holding a mutant hell beast primed to do all three.
It was interesting to watch as normally with the podcast or even the tv show we get the creative part coming up with the setting and the dialog but then the drawing is never shown so we got to see Mike work his magic.
While mike was drawing Jerry took some more questions with the odd couple for mike. One was concerning this comic and the nature of the “Dickwolves” Mike did do an artists impression and I took a picture of it … I’m not sure I would want it in my public picasa account though.
After the panel I wandered the convention a bit took in the sounds the sights and the smells of the place while I plotted my next move. I went to see sucker punch’s Infamous 2 and got a tshirt. The demo was pretty good it looked like they had tightened up the traversal system to make it easier to find a line through the city which could be a bit hit and miss. They also have revamped the melee a bit with the addition of the amp a sort of cross between a club and a cattle prod that Cole uses with his powers to beat the hell out of things. They had also added some new powers including the ability to create electric lightning tornadoes that toss people cars and building around. All in all it felt more like you were a super hero where as the first one most of the powers could have been substituted for guns and grenades. They also seem to have added at least partially destructible buildings which is a nice touch it feels like you have more power when you can bring down the areas enemies are standing on.
After that I rushed over to the Sheraton where one of the panels was being held. They were going to do a live d&d session with Mikes group which sounded interesting. I queued up for over an hour and a half and then discovered the people had done a miscount and my part of the queue didn’t get in. This wound me up a bit, they offered priority status to the Will Wheaton panel but I turned it down thinking I wouldn’t make the evening concerts but in hindsight I probably should have taken it so that hour and half wasn’t a complete waste.
I wandered the conference some more had a go a queuing for the Guild Wars 2 booth and saw Spoony said hello as he rushed past to try the game talk to the devs. I worked out that I was looking at a multiple hour wait in my current line so after watching for a bit moved on. Looked at the duke nukem forever queue and that was even longer. I wandered a bit more taking in the various games on offer then headed back to the hotel for a pre-concert rest.
Had a half an hour rest and then headed down to join the concert queue this evening it was a lot busier than before and I was glad I got in earlier. After an hour and half we got in to the hall being on my own I could slot in where there were gaps quite easily and I got fairly close to the front. I was sat behind a group of people wearing goggles in a semi steampunk style. The girl directly in front very nicely asked if it was alright for her to get up and dance since it might obscure my view. Most people wouldn’t even have asked and it was nice to see some people still think of others.
First up was a round of the Omegathon they kicked off with a rockband session with Jerry singing a song he wrote based on some wargame thing. It’s apparently available for download on rockband network. He was also wearing a fake mostache for some reason maybe hoping he wouldn’t be recognized which might have worked for people that didn’t already know what he looked like.
They then rolled out the Omeganauts in two teams to play Foreigners Cold as Ice with the new rockband keyboard controller which is supposed to be hardcore. Anyway the first team was Mike’s and they were called “Omegadeath” and they were followed by Jerry’s team “Telekinetic Sweater”. Omegadeath seemed to give the most animated performance where as Telekinetic Sweater had all the stage presence of a dead walrus. However TS where victorious going on to the next round and with that Jerry and Mike departed and the concert proper began.
Leading up the line up was MC Frontalot and he started with a preview of his latest video which featured Bears with rocket packs. He then kicked off with some nerdcore rap which was fairly enjoyable. He had lots of special guest numbers with people I’d never heard of but a few with the following acts Paul and Storm and Jonathan Coulton.
Next up was comedy duo Paul and Storm they did some great numbers and lead in with some video of photoshopped protest signs. They had plenty of good stuff with Frogger the Musical and a few guest spots with Jonathan Coulton. Their final number was a pirate song heavy on the audience participation (RRRRRRRRRRR) featuring Will Wheaton and there was a lot of joking a lot of taking words and saying that was the name of their such and such cover band. At one point they did utter the line “Shut up Wesley” at Will which was pretty funny. They did eventually get through the song with many side tracks and then it was Jonathan Coulton.
JoCo as they call him (but who are they?) did a good set a mix of old and new including some I’d heard and of course “Re: Your Brains”. He did this whole meta thing at the end where he said he was going to say that the next song this is the last song and everyone will go “ahhhh” but not really I’m just going to go back stage and wait then come back and do some more and then someone will shout RRRRR and he’ll say that was the last group and then someone will call out ‘Freebird!’ and he’d have to make some comment about it not being ironic anymore. He said this and then the whole scenario repeated when he actually said ‘this is the last song but not really’.
I forget what the not last song was but after he’d gone away and come back he had two girls strapped together to a single ukulele play Still alive and everyone joined in then he said and now it’s the last song (and people did the whole AHhhh RRRR Freebird! thing again which was pretty funny) . All in all it was a great night and I staggered out of the concert hall at some 1am and back to my hotel.
Far more people stayed to the end it almost didn’t empty at all where on Friday it was maybe half full by the end.
All in all a great nights concert and I went to bed really worn out.
