w00t! Day 1 is over, and Day 2 is well under way. It is currently 3:14pm and I've been here since about 10am. But before I go into the awesomeness of today, I want to talk about yesterday.

I ended up getting in sometime after 4pm. During my initial wondering around, I ran into an old high school friend of mine. We talked for a bit, wandered around, and checked stuff out. I also ran into Jamie and Jon pretty soon after, and enjoyed the festivities.

The first real thing to mention is the first 'panel' we went to, which was the Online Gaming Panel. A lot of what was covered was stuff like MMO's, XBox Live, and other online games. The guys also talked a lot about other mobile platforms, and just gaming platforms in general (Cell phones, the Nokia N-Gage, XBox Live, Sony's online gaming for the Playstation 2 & 3, PC's, etc, etc, etc). Talk about WoW and Everquest was also very present. A lot of talk about the amount of bandwidth and just.. time and energy that goes into building these worlds, and maintaining them. Overall very interesting, and something I'm glad I was able to attend. It really provided some insight into the way the gaming industry is handling new games and how things are progressing. For example, consoles are getting more and more powerful, and the line between PC's and consoles is beginning to blur. There is also the overlap of games going from consoles to something like cell phones. Two very different platforms, and yet, some games are able to make this leap and work, where as others fail horribly. I could have thought of more to say in this area yesterday, but right now, I'm at a loss. Yesterday was rather.. long, and I'll get to that in a bit.

After that panel, was the one I really was looking forward to seeing. I wanted to go to the Penny Arcade Panel last year as well, but the theater was too small.. This year, I made it in. Gabe and Tycho are brilliant, brilliant people. The panel was short (only an hour), and most of it was basically a big Q&A session with Gabe and Tycho answering questions. Lots of good questions were asked ranging from the current stuff thats going on, and what games they played growing up.

They're gamers. They write comics about games and gamers. And they do it well. I'm really not sure what else to say. It was an awesome panel, I'm glad I was able to attend, and I really wish I could recite some of the stories and comments that were made. You really did need to be there. Just freaking awesome.

Next, we watched The Wizard. They apparently tried to get Fred Savage to come and introduce the movie, but he refused. This was my first time seeing it, unfortunately, but afterwards, I can understand why, if that really was the case (I mean, he really does probably just want to forget he ever did that).

Now, imagine a thousand gamers sitting in a theater watching an this. It was hilarious. I'll just leave the rest to your imagination.

Now, afterwards, I was looking forward to this one as well: Red vs Blue. I Expected it to be lots of RvB showings, but they only showed like.. four episodes. Now, granted, they did premier Episode 1 of Season 4, which really was quite awesome, but way too much of it was taken up in Q&A. At this point, it was late, and there were some rather.. interesting people and questions that came up. The guys that make the series really were pretty interesting, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to sit in, but two hours was just way too much. Cool guys though, and the series is doing well. Cool stuff.

And now, lets back up a bit. When I got here first, It was about 2:30pm (I could've gotten in around 2 if I had wanted), but I saw a line and said, naw, screw it, and so I went and sat at a starbucks for a couple hours. See yesterdays post). I failed to realize that the concerts required wristbands at that point. I found at later after I ran into Jamie and Jon. Now, I really didn't feel like standing in line, I wanted to watch the panels and whatnot. And so thats what I did. Lo and behold, after RvB was out, and I was ready to take off, I found out that bands were still available, and so I was able to get in anyways. Score!

And this is where the fun really begins. Its 12:30am on Saturday now. And Martin Leung (The Video Game Pianist, aka The Blindfolded Pianist) opened up playing classic video game theme's on the piano. It really was quiet spetacular. Aftwards, Optimus Rhyme came out. Now, I never have been much of a rap/hiphop fan, but recently, I've started to be more open with what I'm willing to listen to. I care more about the sound and talent behind the music, then what type it is. I've listened to MC Frontalot for a while now, and like him. Although, I have heard several people here at PAX that don't care for him much, oh well. But anyways, Optimus Rhyme is one kickass artist. I'm not really sure how to describe what he does. He raps, he has a band. And I mean a real band. With a bassist, guitarist, drummer, etc. Awesome. Broken English even came up for a few songs. I am definitely going to have to check out more of his stuff.

The night ended with The NESkimos. They are a rock band that play video game music. (Think The Black Mages, but not just Final Fantasy). They were pretty good, although, I wasn't really able to make out what a lot of it was, but then, I've never been all that good at being able to identify music, especially when its translated into another form.

And that pretty much sums up day 1. It rocked. Until I got to my car. For some f*cked up reason, I got a parking ticket. I don't plan on paying the fine. I'll gladly pay the parking fee ($15), but I'm disputing the $40 violation fee that I'm being charged for non-payment. I didn't see any notice that payment had to be made by a certain time. So, this really pisses me off. But I'll blog about that later, after PAX is over.

And now. A quick summary of Day 2 so far. I got here at 10, waited in line for an hour, and got my concert wrist band. Which effing rocks! Tonight, the line up consists of: Conney Lin (playing the arrangements of Michael Huang), MC Frontalot, MC Chris, and then the Minibosses are wrapping it all up. I love PAX.

After getting the band, I wandered around the exhibition area for a bit, got some free stuff (gamecube hat, City of Heroes comics, some wierd dart thing. that was about it).

I actually left the exhibition area for a panel, came back, and left again. (for free stuff..). The first panel today was 'Pitch Your Game Idea.' Basically, there was a panel of three people in the game industry (Larry Hyrb [XBox], Jeff Kalles [Nintendo], Mark Vitello [Playstation]). I'm guessing they were marketting types, but I can't say for sure. Essentially, people came up, pitched their idea, and the panelist critiqued and ridiculed them. It was great. Last year, there was Robot vs Ninja vs Pirate vs Monkey, which in my opinion would be awesome. This year, the same guy, as a special presentation, presented some wierd game using Koala's. It really was quite original, and inspiring. I also came out of the panel with some interesting game ideas. I'm starting to want to get back into the 'I want to make a game' state-of-mind. I might even be able to succeed now. We'll see. Lots of good ideas, lots of crappy ideas, lots of not-really-ideas, etc were presented. Some were excepted well. Some were pretty much outright rejected as horrible ideas, and some, simple weren't clear enough. Unfortunately, I don't remember much details for many of the games beyond that. I might post some best-of stuff later (of the stuff I liked and can remember. It'll make this post too long and boring i think :))

Next up, 'Make Monday's Strip with Gabe and Tycho'. They went through the process of scripting, drawing, inking, coloring, etc. The sketch was done ahead of time, which I can totally understand why, for sake of time. It really was quite cool. I'll post pictures of this (and lots of other PAX pictures) early next week. Possibly Sunday, we'll see.

And that pretty much takes us up to now. I appologize for the insanely long post, I really will get better eventually.

I have a case of Bawls in my car now as well. ($1/bottle, or $20 for a case here, it rocks). I've had two already today, bottles are all over the place, and they are giving out free samples of Snow Bawls (think a Bawls Slurpee). Mmmmmm. Good stuff.

And now I think I'll end this post here. I'll post a final wrap up tomorrow night, I might do an early, Day 2 wrap-up post (either late tonight, or early tomorrow), but I'm not sure yet. I was going to post last night, but i was exhausted and needed to be up early.

--nullpuppy(out)