All In for Gen Con

We are all geeky about something.



Gen Con is this week right here in Indianapolis. This will be my 5th visit. The level of involvement over the years goes like this: curious, interested, involved, engulfed, fanatical. Somewhere between the involved and engulfed phase I shook loose from the mild embarrassment I felt about being a part of this community. To this day it still requires a bit of an explanation as to 1) What is Gen Con? and 2) Why are you paying $70 to attend? In the early days I wouldn't bring up the subject, lest I get further queried as if I had two navels or practiced Voodoo. Realizing that everyone is a geek about something (and if they aren't they are boring people). I will now talk your ear off about my new passion.


So here is the FAQ section in which I proudly proclaim my geekdom.

What is Gen Con?
It's a gaming convention where the gaming industry and players come together to play and preview primarily board and card games.

For the full (and boring) Wiki version: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gen_Con

Why are you paying $70 to attend?
I'd rather not pay the fee in light of the fact that most events and sessions carry an extra charge and that the folks in the exhibit hall must pay to sell their wares. That being said, there are other $70 items that I don't think are worth the money. One being a round of golf which is a subject that I will someday open up about in a later post.

Is this one of those conventions where people dress up like trolls, warriors, and other fictional characters?
Yes. But I don't. It's like going to nudist colony with one's clothes on. I get to view the spectacle without really participating. It is annoying when I get smacked by a rubber sword or a dragon tail in a crowded aisle.

Are there games like Monopoly at Gen Con?
I suppose, but outside Magic the Gathering, and Dungeons and Dragons. most of the titles are a newer generation of board games that feature high quality components and fresh designs that rely on strategy to win rather than luck. Many of the the titles originate in Europe and are not found at Wal-Mart or Target. They are sold in specialty game stores. Many of themes are fantasy and horror related and that brings in many of the comic book fans.

What games do you play?
I mostly play war games featuring historical accuracy. Reading about a famous battle is one thing, but playing it on a tabletop goes a long way in understanding the conflict. I particularly like games with miniatures. Read: toy soldiers.

Any games that I'd like?
Given that you like playing games, there are a few worth looking into. For example, Settlers of Catan, Dominion, and Ticket to Ride are games that my friends and family enjoy.

So what do you do there for 4 1/2 days?
I play the games with fans from all over the nation. Often the game's designer is on hand to answer questions or give tips on winning strategies. I'm booked solid with various sessions.

...and?
Felicia Day will be there this year and I once saw Kari Byron of The Mythbusters. Oh, and you can grab a bunch of swag. There will be special edition game pieces given out. There's other things like Anime festivals of which I hold no interest. It's like Las Vegas. Everyone has a different agenda at the same location. Having 30,000 other gamers there is a sight to behold.

See you there?

Back to School at Wal-Mart

Back to School sales have always triggered an acute episode of depression and dread within me. They remind me that summer will be ending some day. That's what hit me when I walked into my local Wal-Mart today. It's effen July 14. It's less than three weeks into the season. Yet I see full displays of Elmer's School Glue, compasses with sharp points, gel pens, giant erasers, spiral notebooks, and other supplies for the classroom that will be banned by most teachers from day one. Summarily: school glue (kids pour it on their palm, let it dry, and peel it off the fine layer of an imprint of their skin; compasses (sharp object, duh?), gel pens (especially pink, tend to bleed on cheap-assed school paper, and are hard on teacher's eyes) ; big erasers (big hole in paper, guaranteed), spiral notebooks (devices of evil constructed out of wire, shreds of paper all over creation, and maned edges of paper lock together when stacked).

These are great deals for adults who do not have access to a bounty of free office supplies from their job site, but for parents lacking shopping savvy or held captive to the desires of their children, it's a big waste of money. The wise wait until registration when the teacher provides a list of required (and sensible) supplies. Which, come to think of it, is within three weeks in these parts. School opens August 2. I guess not too many Indiana children are needed to harvest the corn crop. So, my shock at seeing this crap on the shelves in mid-July shouldn't have stunned me.

What did stun me was the condition of said displays at this particular Wal-Mart. It looked like someone spilled a giant box of Lucky Charms all over the front of the store. Bulk school supplies spilled from various bins and boxes had formed a sea of pink, blue, pink, yellow, red, green, pink, pink, purple, turquoise, and pink. Newly packaged objects mixed with broken and / or unpacked objects. The few survivors wading through the area were filling their carts indiscriminately. While one parent was hollering across a mound of pocket folders to ask her little Boo Boo what he needed, he was tossing stuff in the cart that he wanted. A clerk was failing in his attempt to restock the displays as some were picking merchandise right off his flat wagon.

OK, maybe I mostly made most of this up exaggerate a bit. But the store is a mess. I went it looking for mounting putty that is usually found right where the sale was happening. Going back an aisle or two, hoping that the putty was just moved for the occasion, I walked into a clearance sale that was going on. That's four rows of absolute junk that Wal-Mart shoppers have rummaged through for the past few months. There was no apparent system to the placement of these items. If there was, a complex system that only Stephen Hawking could grasp was used. How could a single washcloth relate to a a partially open package of 240 grain sand paper or a pack of birthday candles?

Wal-Mart gives me the willies anyway, but today was particularly distressing. Frustration in not finding mounting putty, facing the fact that summer does not last forever, and that not everyone is as neat and orderly as me, presented a three-headed beast that sent me away in a quivering mass of anxiety.

Don't Make Me Over

So goes the old Dionne Warwick tune from 1962. (a good one at that)

Leave me alone when it comes to dressing me. I'm a big boy, and I know what I like to wear. I know what I won't wear. Sure, if I had to look good for a BIG formal event, I'd assuredly have Tim Gunn cleaning me up for the fête, but you are not Tim Gunn, forget about it.

My wardrobe almost exclusively consists of plain navy blue, gray, or black tee shirts on top with dark pants or shorts on the bottom. A hoodie goes over the tee in the winter. I do not go to a job site to work, I do not need anything but.

Nothing is more demeaning than a grown man having his wife or girl friend help him shop for clothes. If I need a suit and tie or an upgrade to my 100-dollar-dinner outfit, I am capable of putting together a good set of good looking and comfortable vines. I cringe when I witness some poor shinkydinked fellow modeling clothes for a meddlesome and controlling woman

My hair, buzzed off. My face, always clean-shaven. I do not like jewelry. Haberdashery is out. This does not make me a slob. I just happen to dress simply.

This Spartan approach also allows my charming personality to shine through and not be hidden by an ostentatious wardrobe.

The Purge

This small piece of internetz space is overgrown with weeds. So neglected has it been that I don't even check in to see if anyone has left a comment. Come to find out that there has been weed-like comments by some douche who goes by the inspiring name of Anonymous. I'm minutes away from deleting A's comments which concern promotion of needless services and are sown on the most barren of online soil.

The second order of business is to increase the font size. Not only does it give impression of more content, but keeps people from saying "Fuck it. I'm not going to strain my eyes to read this teeny-tiny font." The readers who arrive here by mistake or are weeding out their bookmarks and wondering what the hell "Harrumph, Harrumph" is / was all about and bailing out after seeing the dinky text cannot be blamed. Nothing written in small print is interesting. This would include such things as disclaimers, footnotes, government warnings, and expiration labels.

Since I decided to keep this blog active, I had to reconcile it with my social media involvement. Twitter sates 99% of my online communication needs. Facebook? Still haven't warmed up to it. Facebook is often like being forced to look at wedding pictures of the wedding that already ruined an otherwise exciting Saturday for me.

Harrumph, Harrumph is now called called Bonus Coverage. Should a snide remark on Twitter lead to a rant or a tedious account of an actual event that interrupts my mundane life, then you'll find it here.

Oh, I almost forgot. This post is titled The Purge. I have pared down the list of people I follow on Twitter. I used to be so thrilled that someone would follow little ol' me that I would follow them right back. Now jaded, and convinced that while I wasn't reading their tweets any more than they were reading mine, I had to pull the plug on these low voltage excuses for human interaction. I mean, really. I'm saturation bombing Twitter with profanity and a mutual follower is sending out tweets that read like auditions for sappy greeting cards.

Among the malfeasance or indiscretion that led to being scratched from my list included the following:

Retweeting everything. I mean everything. Particularly annoying are retweets of headline news items. "Asteroid hits Cincinnati, Ties up Traffic." Thanks Mr. News Tipster(s).

Offering advice. I don't need a life coach. I certainly don't want to be like you. ...and by the way, if you want to make me financially successful, give me all your money, otherwise, fuck off.

Celebs without content. Make me laugh, say something provocative, or else get lost.

People who can't or won't write above a 5th grade level. I'm assuming they don't read very well either and my posts are too difficult for them to grasp. Although rife with typos as a result of posting at 5:00 a.m. or when my steady state is disturbed by the slightest chemical imbalance, my posts at least are aimed at reasonably intelligent followers.

Anyone who follows thousands of people. Sorry, Jack, one less won't make much difference.

So why am I following you? Because you're interesting. You're are a good writer. You will engage in a conversation. More so, I am drawn to the disenchanted, nihilistic, irreverent, insecure, befuddled, and otherwise mentally unbalanced.

Anyone who can scribe a riveting account of their latest meal, deserves to be read.

Offended? Bite Me.

Many of my my fellow progressives are prone to being easily outraged at innocuous statements. If a word comes out of some one's mouth even to vaguely suggest a slight, insult, tort, smear, or ill suggestion, then many swoon in shock.

The latest is the Nike ad where basketball star, Kobe Bryant, stated he doesn't "leave anything in the chamber." OMFG! So now we're saying that a sport that involves "shots" can't use a firearms metaphor? Kobe didn't say that when he plays he has the urge to kill every motherfucker on the opposing team. Did he?

In other PC news, someone (Biden) said Negro, and is catching hell for it. Yeah, I know, it sounds suspiciously like an N-bomb, especially when some inbred cracker drawls it out - and it is an antiquated term like octaroon or mulatto that was devised by and for anal racists who thought it necessary to construct a taxonomy of non whiteys. But, shit, it's not really an insult in most contexts and in fact may be the most accurate way of referring to a person of color. Not all people of color are black, nor are they African Americans. It's no big deal. Kind of like farting. Not socially acceptable, but an "excuse me" and a blast of fresh air is all that's needed to right the wrong.

I say this to make a point. Andrei Kirelinko (initials A.K.) of the Utah Jazz sports the number 47. No accident that it refers to the famous Russian automatic weapon. And like I said, pro sports are rife with terms that suggest violence. It so happens that Gilbert Arenas (Black guy) was just suspended drawing a weapon in the locker room. Bad idea by Gilbert. So now, Kobe, can't even talk about guns. AK-47 still goes about his busines.

I'm suggesting that the response to the Nike ad is more racist than Biden's gaffe. Had Steve Nash said "empty chamber" would there be the same outcry? Doubt it.

The danger of crying foul every time someone utters a misplaces word, is that there is no headroom for truly racist remarks or hate speech. I'm not suggesting that we call open season for offensive speech. Let's just show a little more tolerance and listen to what people say and not their choice of words.